


Bone of Contention

by tamagopants



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: AkuSai, Angst, Destructive Friendship, Drama, M/M, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:27:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 71,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamagopants/pseuds/tamagopants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isa suffers from a rare bone disease, osteogenesis imperfecta. When Lea overlooks this in favour of having someone to himself, Isa leaps at the opportunity and so begins their downward spiral from friends to lovers to Nobodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Isa / Saix: Just a Name

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by Jodi Picoult. The head hopping POV has the potential to be very confusing but it is effectively two fics told at once, one in 'Somebody' time and the other 'Nobody' time, where the Somebodies' last and the Nobodies' first will hopefully connect the stories. Please note that I have rated this story as mature, for scenes of sex, violence and the emotionally disturbing. The rating is subject to change.
> 
> All recognisable characters and settings are copyright to Square Enix.

 

**_______________________________**

  **ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _eleven years before death_ -

**_______________________________**

 

 

The first occasion that suggested I might be a psychic of sorts was on the eve of my twelfth birthday, when I wound down the kitchen blinds and knew my mother had just died. I sat at our table for two (since we never had visitors), cut a slice of birthday cake and waited up all night for the local policeman to knock on the door.

I didn't tell PC Reimer that I knew the news long before he did. I didn't tell him I knew my mother had fallen down the stairs that curved round the florist's; that she had died from shock before the pain of snapping her neck could hit her; that the glass scattered at her lifeless form was not previously a fish bowl as PC Reimer thought, but a wish jar – a present intended for me.

After her funeral, I was carted off to my aunt's family. It wasn't as if I had any other place in mind, but the new environment did not cater to people like me. Their home was disorderly and squashed enough without an extra member. Book towers on the landing, dirty laundry piled into a corner, my cousin's toys and gadgets with wires trailing out of them – these were only a few items items that could present my new family with a colossal bill.

"It's all right, we'll clear up so you won't trip over," my aunt had said, too harassed in her catering job to see to this. "In the meantime, _please_ be careful."

In three months, however, it was established that being careful was not a cure for osteogenesis imperfecta. While I quickly became accustomed to the change, used to my aunt's pestering, uncle's temper and cousin's vindictive taunts, they couldn't get used to me, and I understood that. After all, how _could_ someone break a rib just by sneezing? Or fracture three bones in his foot simply by stumbling?

But that was the curse of osteogenesis imperfecta, an incurable genetic disease that made the sufferer's bones unbearably brittle. I only had Type I – the mildest form of OI – so while I was one of the lucky ones, I also carried the psychological burden of being an in-between, looking too normal to be disabled, looking too disabled to be normal.

People with OI didn't react to rejection in a common way. Some tried their hardest to fit in; others gave up midway and fulfilled their social needs by settling for their family; there were those who were charismatic and likeable enough for their disease to be overlooked. And then there was me. I didn't have the interesting personality to save me, nor did I have the bravery to try and fit in, the understanding family to encourage me.

That was how you found me, buried in my passive fury with OI, at our school's Sports Day – in my opinion, the worst day of the year. You stared at me as if you had never seen anyone so talented in making himself miserable; you stood at a distance, perhaps aware of my anger.

Since I was exempt from Sports Day, I had decided to spend my afternoon writing out wishes for my nonexistent wish jar. Traditionally, a wish jar was an ongoing activity of faith, of stretching hope over a lifetime; my idea of a wish jar, however, was finite and less likely to disappoint. I imagined mine as a black hole, an ending rather than a beginning, where every scrap of paper prescribing a wish wasn't written in anticipation of being fulfilled, but sealed away with my intent to never dwell on it again.

"Which sport are you doing?" you asked. "You haven't even changed, and the relay starts in five minutes."

You didn't seem to understand that I sat away from the sports field for a reason. "What class are you in?" you asked next. "Oh! Are you writing out wishes?"

You picked up a scrap of paper before I could stop you, slumping onto the bench to join me. Of course, I was excited that someone was actually paying attention to me, but this feeling, combined with the natural rise in my hopes, was what typically hurt me. Broken bones were painful, but being openly rejected for who you couldn't help being – that tear across the heart was infinitely worse and harder to forget.

The paper was mercifully blank. You gave it back to me and knocked your knees together, quite idle. I studied as much of you as I could without meeting your gaze. You barely filled out your sports kit with your skinny arms and legs, and such a build made me wonder what sport you did.

"Do you have a jar to put these in?" You were relentless and persistent, still talking even though I had made it clear I wanted nothing to do with you. I gathered up my wishes, pulling my belongings close while surveying the relay teams' warm up. I could hear cheering as they prepared, from classmates and siblings to parents and teachers. There was a wall between the excitement of Sports Day and me, that only I was aware of and affected by.

"No jar?" you said again.

I shook my head. "I'll carry them home. Shouldn't you be over there?"

"Shouldn't you?" you returned smoothly. "Here, look. I have an idea."

And you finally caught my gaze, and I realised the game was up. My eyes were a sharp green, but OI caused my sclera to be a dull blue-grey, as though my irises had no boundary and the colour bled into the rest of my eyes. If someone were to miraculously not notice my triangular face and ungainly walk, my eyes would undoubtedly reveal that I wasn't 'right'.

"Do you want something from me?" I snapped. The sooner you left, the better.

"Yeah. Just your name." You shrugged and picked at your trainer.

"We call him 'flat pack'," said a voice I recognised. Sure enough, when I turned, I was met with the sneering face of my cousin and his friend. If someone were to miraculously not notice my triangular face, ungainly walk _and_ blue sclera, then my cousin could surely clarify.

"Why?" you said.

"Well, what happens to flat pack furniture? It breaks sooner or later." My cousin pointed to me. "Don't you know about him? He's disabled. He has this bone disease that makes him _fragile_. His mum snuffed it a few weeks ago and now he lives with us. We have to pay out for his fractures because all he does is hurt himself."

"Aren't you meant to be in the relay?" I said to him, and my cousin nodded, giving a false wave. He did a cartwheel as he left, sniggering with his friend. You watched after them, folding your arms behind your head.

"I'm Lea. What's your name? I know it's not 'flat pack'," you added. "Oh, and it's Lea with an 'a'. So it's L-E-A."

I pursed my lips. I could tell that you were the sort of person who'd give his name and consequently his trust, to anyone. But to me, giving my name felt as if I was handing over a fragment of my heart, which I couldn't afford to do because of the risk of it returning bruised. I had heard many stories about children who were different, and how they had fallen prey to bullies. On many of these occasions, the perpetrators had pretended to be friends, playing to the child's desire to feel appreciated for that difference, and that susceptibility would have opened doors to something terrible instead.

 You got to your feet, and I thought for a minute that you had given up. Instead, you delved into your schoolbag, and I saw on your name label that you were in a class two years below me. You withdrew a flask and downed all of your drink, before peeling off one of your socks and wiping the inside. Quite frankly, I had never seen anything so filthy, but then you handed the open flask to me.

"Here. Store your wishes in here for now, and then come over to the sports field. I'm sprinting after the relay."

Sprinting? Really? I stared at your thin legs, convinced that you were about as good a runner as I was. You pulled your sock back on and as you did, I slowly tipped my wish paper into the flask you gave me, screwing the lid on tight. "Thanks," I muttered, to which you replied with a grin.

I was still suspicious of you, in all honesty. Of all people who had come over to talk to me, you were the first who didn't back away after finding out about me. Did you have an ulterior motive, or were you really that altruistic?

"So this bone disease of yours," you started, and I thought to myself, _here we go_. "Is that why you don't play sports?"

I nodded. Granted, OI wasn't so restricting that I couldn't play anything, but it was quite hard enjoy sports when you had no friends.

"I broke my finger once," you continued. "It was really painful – how do you cope, breaking bones all the time?" And like with many of your questions, you didn't give me time to answer. "Look after these for me, won't you?"

You passed your belongings and picked a front row spot on the grass for me, right by the running track. You asked me to keep an eye out for you – oblivious to how your hair colour made this no difficult feat – and jogged to the starting line.

I wanted to ask why you had come over to me; and more importantly, why you had chosen to stay. Would you be wounded if I said I was wary of you? Or would you let your wide grin fall as you commended me for my caution? I held onto your flask tight, hoping that what I had entrusted my wishes to was an unshakeable iron cage, and not a paper basket that would surely disappoint.

Every now and then, during your warm up, you turned round to check that I was watching. You mouthed something to me, a sentence, a phrase you repeated in silence at first, and then with mime. You jogged on the spot and then pointed at me.

 _If I win, you have to tell me your name_.

On the sound of the gun, you broke into a sprint. I followed you, a streak of red that dashed so fast that the other runners were left in your wake. Your matchstick legs suddenly had muscle, and your nonchalant face was now marred with a twisted look of concentration.

I was too shy to cheer you on, more inclined to just watch and not draw attention to myself. Nevertheless, a passing teacher remarked how it was rare to see me so involved in Sports Day, and I answered, too eager for my own liking, "I'm looking after some stuff for a friend."

You came third in the end. You collected your disappointment so that it escaped in a single scowl. "Ah well, I tried," you said, skulking back.

"You still did good," I complimented, and though such a forced comment sounded ridiculous coming from me, you smiled all the same.

I was so close to smiling back. _So_ close. But it happened at that exact moment, when I lazily stretched out my legs because for the first time ever, I was enjoying Sports Day. You stumbled en route to sitting down. Your foot collided with my own and it was just a mild hit, and it was more than enough. I screamed and you leapt back, your eyes wide.

You shouted something. I couldn't see beyond the whiteness of pain to comprehend. I wanted to seize my ankle, but a teacher was already there, calling for people to stay back. I was pulled up to my good foot, lifted slowly and carefully by an adult who knew never to haul me by the armpits. Amidst the minor commotion, you finally caught my name, repeating it after the teacher.

"Isa, Isa, I'm so sorry! Sir, it's all my fault, I accidentally stood on his foot. I'll take him to the first aid room—Isa, are you okay?"

I burst into tears. The teacher slapped an ice pack to my swollen ankle, but that wasn't even close to where I was actually hurting.

****_______________________________** **

**SAÏX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

\- _fourteen minutes after birth_ -

**_______________________________**

 

I wake up because I can't breathe.

I scrabble for my throat and it hurts, it's fucking killing me. My mouth is open but nothing will come, nothing is dulling this agony of being torn open at my ribs. There's snarling and shrieking and I'm very certain it's me, hollering for oxygen, but I can't control my writhing and flailing to stop and listen.

Why aren't you helping me? I'm going to die because I can't breathe, and I don't want to die…Please help me.

I throw out my arms, because you _have_ to be next to me. This is another one of those drunk escapades, isn't it? How many times do I have to tell you that you can't hold your drink? I'm always having to lug you back to our flat and quite frankly, I'm getting tired of doing it. Where are you?

I choke when my hands grasp thin air, and from what I can see with my blurred vision, there's not a splash of red in sight. It's just dark. I panic, because when my fingernails scrape into a fist, I don't feel the softness of bed sheets but hot, reeking earth. And when I try and sit up, my legs brush against one another and I realise I'm naked. Something slithers along my back and across my shoulders. My throat burns as I choke on air that's like acid, and I try to draw your name out. I'm calling for you – why aren't you answering? 

"I think we have seen enough. He's reverberating, and violently at that. Lexaeus, if you could."

Suddenly, I feel so warm. Is that you? You've never been able to lift me. It doesn't matter. Please, I'm so scared, just take me back home.

-x-

I wake up again. This time, it's too bright. Everything is so white and I hate white. There's an arm resting over my stomach, and I think it's you for a second, but it's just me. I push down on the side of my body. One…two…three broken ribs. A dull ache in my other arm. That's probably a fracture.

I sit up and draw my knees in. This isn't a hospital. I don't know where I am. I am conscious and coherent enough to know that at least. Gingerly, awaiting the usual morning greeting of my body struggling to function after sleep (and being pleasantly let down), I slide out of bed and edge to the door. Whose body am I in? It's certainly not my own. These shoulders do not feel like they have ever been dislocated at all; these hands are perfect and these fingers straight, bearing no signs of breakage. And these ears…oh, I can actually _hear_.

I look left at the far wall. It's panelled with floor length windows that give a view to absolutely nothing. I blink, and the pale man with amber eyes, sandwiched into those panes, neither here nor there – he blinks right back.

My eyes. I stagger forwards and touch my face. They're yellow. Not a trace of blue, not even a hint of the colour in the whites of my eyes. My skin is flawless and unblemished; it hasn't seen sickness or grief at all. My legs are toned and sinewy; my side, despite the broken ribs, is perfectly sculpted. There's nothing inelegant.

That's not me.

I catch a dark spot in the reflection of the room. I walk over to a floor length black coat, draped over the back of a chair. There are boots, trousers and gloves too. And resting on the seat is a slip of paper, a thin ribbon of it, the sort I'd feel compelled to write a wish on.

_Go the other way._

Your writing. I pick up another sheet of paper with a pen attached. It's underneath your note and is bigger and printed, with a frayed bottom from where you tore a sliver.

_Mission: Please take a left turn to the lounge, and provide the Superior with your name. Sign this brief when the mission is complete._

I only register the word 'left'. I throw on this strange uniform to keep myself from shivering, and then stumble out the door and wheel to my right. It's an empty stretch of hallway that is also too white to be tolerable. Murmurs ring down this corridor like light bouncing across mirrors. I sneak into the room next door to mine and you pull me in, and I know it's you because only you can fit against me so seamlessly.

You push me against the shut door, beckoning with a hand for me to keep quiet. I nod my obedience and lock my arms around you. Everything's all right now. The pain subsides as you expel it; the harder I hold onto you, the quicker it leaves.

You draw back from me, and I realise I have to look up to see you. I am about to comment on this – it doesn't sit right with me, your height – and the greenness of your eyes, and the fresh markings under each one; I remember my promise, though, and bite down hard on my lip to stay silent.

"Isa, we're getting out of here. I've been pretending to sleep and I've heard them talking. They keep mentioning _reverberations_ and _instating_. I don't like it; we're leaving."

You have no qualms about meeting my gaze, no concern or surprise, even though I look and feel different. I haven't always been this way. I don't know. Have I? It upsets me when I think about it.

I feel like I am shutting my eyes and letting someone talk through me, where I have no control over what I say and do and think. But when I stop, when I reopen my eyes, I know that I have merely been echoing. That I have just been a vessel, a messenger, another nameless link in the chain.

Is that reverberation? Because it hurts, and I want you to make it stop.

"Don't do that." Your hands fight mine. There are threads in my grasp, a bluish spider web of frustration. I don't have long hair; I never did. "Listen, Isa. I think we can escape. There's five of them, and they're all in that lounge at the moment. There's a city of sorts outside. We can run there and find out where we are. Will you stop that? Your hair looks fine."

Fine? What's fine about this?

This isn't me.

You seize my hand and stick your head round the door. "Let's go."

We edge down the corridor together, away from the murmurs, and I wonder to myself, how much of this actually makes sense to you? We're awake in a place we've never seen before, with appearances we've never had before, and none of it matters to you.

I…I can't think, not without being ripped apart at a place I didn't even know existed. I want to be sick, just to prove to myself that there is something inside of me. I want to claw at my own skin, just to check that I'm actually in here. It hurts, it hurts, it's unbearable—

You come to a grinding halt. My arm knocks against yours. Someone is approaching from the other end of the corridor. He's regal, and unsmiling, and knitting his eyebrows, and suddenly I know that the emptiness is not exclusive to me.

He doesn't try to restrain us. He carries on walking, putting one booted foot in front of the other until he reaches our locked hands. He comes to a stop. I try to let go; you just tighten your grip. He waits, studying each of us in turn.

You lift a defiant chin and announce, "We're leaving."

"Very well," he answers. For reasons I cannot fathom, he seems to be utterly unmoved, as if this is a situation he is commonly presented with. You stare, he stares back, and I'm the first to relent. Aren't I normally? You've always said that backing down made you look spineless and weak, but when I did it, it was a stronger act than any form of your obstinacy.

I move to one side to let him through. He carries on walking, adopting a slow pace that loosely ruffles his coat and silver hair. You make sure you're in plain view of him, before pulling me flush against you, before crashing your lips to the side of my head in a possessive gesture I'm used to. You catch his gaze in a wordless call for a challenge as we walk away, but he's not interested at all. He just tilts his head at an idle angle, surveying me. I know he can see the emptiness in us, this dull resignation that I give into, that you vehemently deny. 

"No, let them go," he says, and though he's down the other end of the corridor now, his broad back turned, my ears can pick up every word. "I only need one to come back."


	2. Lea / Axel: Feed the Rabbit

****______________________________________** **

**LEA, THE BOY WHO'D DISAPPEAR**

\- _eleven years before death_ -

**______________________________________**

 

When I came home after Sports Day, my dad really put me through the wringer. It was a bit like being on a spit roast, getting burned and baked for one half of the cycle, and then being turned upwards to have a bit of a break. The thing about cycles, though, was that they went on and on and on. So once my dad had finished criticising me for skipping more than a quarter of this term's classes, he composed himself and began to berate me for breaking your foot.

"Your mother's been on the phone to that boy's aunt, apologising on your behalf. Luckily, they have health insurance to cover the injury, but that doesn't negate the fact that in your foolhardy play, you inconvenienced so many others. That boy will be in crutches and a cast for the next five weeks. Your mother, who I need not remind you is six days overdue, does not deserve the stress and complication you work so hard to create. For goodness sake, can't you behave?"

"I came third in the sprint today. Second place in hurdles, last place for long jump – oops – and only a measly _first_ place for javelin!" I made the announcement I had been fighting to keep in to everyone; where everyone was my mum, dad, three sisters and rabbit; and of that everyone, the rabbit got the award for most attentive. I was used to it, of course. In big families, you could disappear, and no one would notice.

"Lea, please," my mum complained, dragging me back onto the spit roast.

"It was an _accident_ ," I told her (not for the first time). "I did say sorry, and I did sit with him until the end of school."

And on that note, I felt a twinge of guilt. After diagnosis, you were fitted with a cast that somehow doubled as a gag. You said nothing else once it was on you. You just sat there in bed, chewing your lip and clutching your flask of wishes. I had so wanted to give you a hug but, too afraid that I might hurt you again, I refrained, and now I regretted it. I was sure many people saw your disease before they saw you, and without meaning to, I had become one of them.

**-x-**

My dad was a prosecution lawyer, and Radiant Garden's finest at that. Most days, he was either in court or preparing for court, and since he was rarely home except to sleep, it meant that on the day my mum went into labour, my youngest sister and I were the only ones around.

We managed to take her to the hospital before she became unable to walk. Along the way, an old woman closed her sweet store early so that she could help out. In addition, a man who had previously been smoking at the park entrance, promptly stamped out his cigarette and ran to hold doors open for us.

I thought of their kindness, how they had dropped what they were doing when they saw a pregnant woman in need; and then I thought of you crying on Sports Day, and how people gathered round not to assist but to stare. Your disease was your way of life – the _only_ way of life you could have – and people were quick to judge on that.

I wondered if on Sports Day, you had heard one boy shout, "Faker!" at you. I wondered if you were in too much pain to hear him; or if you were so used to the judgment that his voice simply hit the bubble you sat in and ceased to travel any further.

**-x-**

Ironically, I ran into you when I wasn't looking for you. For nine days after my baby sister was born, I searched the school corridors and playground, keeping my eyes peeled for a glimpse of blue, my ears listening out for the sound of crutches. I never came across you.

Then, one afternoon, my maths teacher sought to punish me for not paying attention in class, and sent me next door to fetch a board wipe. Guess who I saw?

You sat at one of the front desks, one hand propping up your chin and your legs slightly splayed. You lifted your head at the sound of my voice, smiled and returned my wave. And because you did, I suddenly found myself grinning through the rest of my class.

I legged it to you after the bell for home time rang. You were still packing away your books. Even the teacher had left, and you explained to me, "I leave a little later than everyone else. I miss the crowd that way."

"You should petition to leave earlier," I answered. I slung your schoolbag over my shoulder as you reached for it. "I'll walk you home. Unless you're meeting your cousin?"

You wrinkled your nose and I grinned. "Yeah, I don't walk with my sisters either. I have a status to maintain, you know?"

You gave your crutches a none-too-subtle glance. "Then why are you hanging out with me?"

"Well, why not?" I ran to hold the classroom door open for you, deciding it was far too hard (not to mention embarrassing) to elaborate, because my reasoning was more than _why not_. The day we met, I realised I had found someone like me. You were shunned for who you were; I was shunned for who I wasn't. I imagined us as tissue paper or the thin petal of a dying flower, one red and one blue, who were only whole and complete and visible when put together as a dash of purple. You didn't make me feel as if I had just bled into the scenery behind me, out of existence. The way your blurred eyes studied me, how you made me work to get a smile out of you – you wouldn't let me disappear.

I'd later reveal to you that having my dad as a prosecution lawyer did not make me popular at school. Falling asleep and skipping most lessons and still coming out to be top of the class – that didn't make me popular, either. I was living proof that you didn't have to be disabled to be disliked. I wasn't sure if this fact would make you feel better, or reaffirm your suspicions of needing to be a certain calibre in order to fit in.

We set off at a slow pace, to better accommodate your walking. _Click, thud, click, thud_ you went, gingerly testing your crutches on the cobblestone. I talked about silly things – how I snapped a ruler that said it was shatterproof, how I replaced my sister's make up bag with colouring pencils this morning – but you were busy concentrating on not toppling over. When we got to your door (and I could tell from the front garden alone that you lived in a right dump), you took out your keys and gave me a look I couldn't quite decipher. Your shoulders seized up and you became as stiff as a corpse, except for the hand that fiddled with the keys.

"Can I come in?" I blurted out. "I don't need to be home until teatime."

At times like this, my mum would spam my forehead, snap my name and apologise to the offended person. Apparently, I was too forceful and pushy for my own good. But you broke into a smile and from it escaped a sigh of relief.

"That saves me from trying to invite you in," you said.

Your house was smaller than mine, a lot more cluttered and disorganised, but at least it didn't have air freshener that was the scent of rabbit. I channelled my dad and behaved like him, commenting on the great choice of furniture and nice upholstery (what did that word even mean?).

"It's a tip," you said blandly. You were confident in using your crutches here, swinging over the laundry basket and CD pile to the kitchen. "Do you want a drink?"

I said yes and took the drinks tray for you. The two mismatched glasses reminded me of your household's lack of order; but then I reconsidered and thought that maybe you had never taken out more than one glass.

"Go upstairs first," you said, and handed over your crutches. "Can you take these as well? My room is second on the left. I'll come afterwards. Don't…don't turn round," you added, suddenly nervous.

I didn't know how someone with a broken foot tackled stairs, but I could tell there was nothing dignifying about it. "I'll wait in your room," I promised, and with your crutches tucked under my arm, I took our drinks to the second room on the left.

Your window was only open a fraction – and to a junkyard of a back garden at that – but I could smell the strong scent of orange blossom. It was the first thing I noticed, and couldn't quite forget about. On your windowsill was the flask I had given you to store your wishes. I very nearly took it to have a read, but I was certain that with a room this clean, you'd notice if there was even a post it out of place.

Your bedroom was nothing like the rest of your house; it was so orderly, I was almost certain that it had been cut out of another house and forcefully meshed with this one. I remembered with a powerful hit to my stomach that this wasn't far from the truth. I spotted a picture of your mum on the edge table. Save for the eyes, you looked just like her.

You were clearly a massive fan of sticky labels, desk trays and the alphabet. The star charts on your wall were pinned at each corner in such level alignment that I could've been at an art gallery; the books on your desk shelf too, were cosmic themed and lined up faultlessly. In fact, the only clutter in here was a set of cards scattered across your bed, each one depicting a picture and gold text underneath. _Four of Cups_ , I read. _The Chariot_. _The Moon_. _Eight of Wands._ I had seen those somewhere…

"Tarot," you said, limping inside and crashing onto your bed. I could tell you had wanted to do that ever since leaving it. Some cards slid down the quilts, and I wheeled over on your desk chair to pick them up.

"Tarot's cool," I remarked, trying to remember if it was fortune telling or a card game. Your mouth twitched with possible impatience. "And you're an astronomer, too?" I ploughed on.

"Astrolo _ger_ ," you corrected, abruptly cutting a moody figure in that bed of cards. "They're stupid hobbies. My uncle calls them cosmic mumbo jumbo, and that I should have more productive, tangible interests."

"Oh, my dad's like that," I answered, and just like that, your scowl lifted. "He moans at me for doing athletics and having no other hobby. He calls javelin a caveman sport and that a career as an athlete will end once I hit thirty. 'Use your brain, not your body!' he says, again and again, which is him basically saying that I have to become a lawyer or else he'll disown me."

"A lawyer?" You sat up, curious.

"Yeah, like him. He's beastly in court. Oh!" I jumped in my seat, and the rush of a brilliant idea took control of me so that I tapped your arm in a rhythm faster than the wing beat of a hummingbird. "Yes, that's it, Isa! The next time my dad has a public trial, I'll take you to watch. We can go after school. He's incredible – he's a prosecution lawyer by the way, so he prosecutes criminals – and every case starts with his opening statement basically saying that he's going to prove that so-and-so did this crime, and _then_ he finishes his statement with, 'Commit it to memory'." I tried my hardest to copy my dad's baritone voice, but it was surprisingly difficult. "It's cooler when he says it," I concluded. "You ought to come along."

"I'd like that," you replied. A ghost of a smile flitted across your face.

"It might not be any time soon, though. My dad's really moody with me at the moment. I think it's stress in general. Plus we have a new baby, and she screams like a banshee by a microphone. She's got dark hair still, but it'll go blonde too, I'm sure."

You cocked your head to the side, absently collecting up your tarot cards. "Too?" you repeated.

"Everyone in my family has blonde hair. Gah, even the rabbit." I threw my arms up in a fashion that would put my very dramatic mum to shame. "Everyone except me, that is."

You glanced at my shock of red hair. "It's not impossible," you said.

"Yeah, it's possible, but no one looks beyond what they see. I can't tell you how many times I've heard jokes like the milkman or postman being my real dad. And do you know our postman actually has red hair? How annoying is that? Pass me your leg." I veered off subject and you jerked a little in surprise. "I'm going to draw on your cast. Is that all right?"

"Sure." You edged along your bed and rested your bad leg across it.

"Genes," I scoffed, delving into my bag for felt tips. "They really messed up when it came to you and me."

When I looked up, you were grinning. You bit down on your lip in resemblance of someone who shouldn't have been laughing, who had forgotten how to laugh, but now, couldn't help himself if he tried.

 

**______________________________________**

**AXEL, THE FLURRY OF DANCING FLAMES**

\- _four hours after birth_ -

**______________________________________**

 

During the hours we roam these streets, we don't come across a single person. We're only accompanied by hunched creatures, as sublime and indistinct as a stifled sigh of relief. Neon signs croon over us like ugly flower heads, buzzing with the drone of something alive when it shouldn't be. The buildings are shells, cracked skeletons of what used to be whole and living and wanted, and you scrape your fingers across the rough bricks and mortar as if trying to tap into their song.

When I turn corners, I half expect these skyscrapers to be boards, propped up by two planks of decaying wood. My shadow bleeds into the concrete and I wonder if I have a shape or form at all. Sometimes, I struggle to distinguish between a dead end and an empty stretch of road.

It starts to rain. Just droplets at first, gone in the blink of an eye; then a downpour, a storm, beating our leather backs and forcing our eyes shut and heads down; and suddenly, I'm shit scared that I'm going to lose you. I stretch out an arm to pull you along – a shoulder, that will do – and locate a side roof for us to sit under.

You begin to tug at your hair again. It's all you do, once you reach a pause in thought or action. You twist and pull and wrench that silky blue curtain, clawing away at your head.

"Stop it." I coax the offending fingers away and sweep your hair so that it falls over one side of your neck. I do up your hood, and you slump against the wall, purposefully banging the back of your head.

I know it hurts. I'm experiencing the exact same thing. Someone has just handed me a manuscript and told me to pick it up and carry on. Where there should be my life story, of memories I worked so hard to collect and preserve, there isn't one. Pages aren't in order, some are damaged and others are missing completely. There are hazy spots, kinks in my memory that I can't smoothen, dozens of events and occasions that bear so much significance but make little sense. Who knew that uncertainty could be so painful? It's no wonder why you tear at your hair. You're trying to reach into yourself, agitated and upset, because you know your soul has to be there – it just doesn't want to be found.

"Shh, now." I keep your hands with mine as you protest. "You're all there, I promise." 

And because you believe everything I say, you stop struggling and give a furious nod. You mirror me, a hapless, hooded ragdoll so pristine on the outside but shattered within.

But that's us, isn't it? We're always breaking. You break bones, and I break everything else, from the ice between us to the promises we make.

Sorry I'm such a bad friend.

I glance up through the rain at the castle overhead, stark white against the black sky. I suspect that this place is so geared that any hope of escaping is through that castle. I don't really want to go. I relay the idea to you anyway, but you shake your head.

"They only need one of us," you reply, and a small frown graces your face.

Sorry I'm such a bad friend. Driving you into a corner was never my intention.

I lean in to catch your breath against my cheek, just to check you're still there. Your voice is so quiet, so hoarse. I hold onto you tight, because even if you haven't figured it out yet, I have. The Organisation only needs one of us since they know the other will follow.

He moves with the slow, languid pace of someone lost in thought. I almost mistake him to be another of those shadowy creatures, but when he approaches us, he's fresh faced and youthful. He doesn't look a day over eighteen. "My name is Zexion. I have been sent to collect you." He unfolds his arms and his leather coat hums with the rattling of rain. "You both have an immediate placement in the Organisation. Of course, you can deny our offer, but given how comfortably you wear our coats, I will assume you are just as accommodating with our cause."

Zexion has a voice that lingers, as though he is still testing it out. I've heard it before, I think. Zexion confirms my suspicions with a small smirk. "I was the one who detected and retrieved you both. I am never the first to doubt my senses, but I did have some qualms. After all, you are Nobodies found not only side by side, but with your hands unconsciously locked together. We founding members, despite crossing at the same time, were separated at birth. So already, without even knowing who you are or how you came to be, you have accomplished more than us. How did you do it?"

Zexion takes a step closer, a movement meant to stem from curiosity, yet I can only see it as a threat. I growl and pull you closer. Zexion's smile widens. "I see. Nothing too complex. You simply didn't want to let him go."

Your fingers slip beneath your hood and you claw at your head again. You're muttering away, punctuating your conversation with shudders and pained moans. Who are you talking to?

"He needs a name, and fast," says Zexion. "He's reverberating and refusing at the same time."

"Look." I stand up and let go of you in the process. You topple sideways and fall onto the sodden ground, your hair spilling out to soak up the rain. "I can barely understand half of what you're saying."

"The key points, then," says Zexion. "Reverberation is the persistence of sound when the original sound has been removed. It is when you copy and eventually distort something that used to be, when you wear someone else's shoes and think you can walk in them, when you create a picture from jigsaw pieces and overlook the glaring gaps. Essentially, reverberation is when you are so good at pretending that you fool yourself. Reverberation is what your friend is resisting; and it is what you have fallen into without so much as a minute of protest."

Zexion sighs because he knows he's bypassed the 'key points'. "The Organisation can help you," he finishes. "The only prerequisite is a name." He lifts a hand and seemingly on his command, an oval of dark space materialises, black tendrils creeping along the ground at his feet. "All that pain. The Superior can make it stop."

You lift your head at the promise, and Zexion sits on his haunches, ignoring me. "That's right. The emptiness you are experiencing now; the Superior has been through it first hand. It is no difficult feat for him to assist you. We merely need a name."

You pull a face, still managing to look so elegant. You shake your head and mutter, "I don't remember," and in a startling resemblance to a snake eyeing up its next meal, Zexion turns to me.

I know not to reel it off my tongue as if it holds little value. You've told me before that you feel like you're handing some of yourself over when you give your name; and that every time someone calls you, it feels like a breeze coming home to your heart or a searing blade to your ribs – depending on who's doing the calling.

Sorry I'm such a bad friend. But you're hurt and upset, and I can't help you this time.

"It's Isa. He's Isa, and I'm Lea."

"Thank you," replies Zexion, and he goes to haul you to your feet. I run forwards, knocking him aside.

"Don't! You can't pull him up from the armpits. It's…it's his bones, they're fragile." I lug you onto your feet the proper way and realise that both of us are shivering. Zexion gestures to the dark oval.

"Through here. These are known as dark corridors which, in due course, you will be able to summon of your own accord. I will take you back to the castle now and inform the Superior of your arrival."

Really? I can step through that corridor and wind up somewhere else? Then again, the idea doesn't seem so farfetched, because I swear I've done something like it before. I'm pretty sure I was running away from something; and I'm pretty sure I dragged you into the last seat instead of…well, that bit's still hazy.

**-x-**

So far, I have played my part faultlessly. You know what I'm like. I laugh when I'm scared; I smile when I'm uncertain. I hold back my fear and feign confidence, I behave as if nothing can push me over, and it's all for you.

I'm sorry, though. This room is too much. 

We get transported to a circular hall, with walls and seats so white, like the mouth of an ice cavern. The ceiling stretches further than I can see, and five sets of eyes bore into me, as Zexion announces, "These were Isa and Lea."

I think we're in a courtroom.

I can hear the sound of decision and contemplation. We stand on a platform, a balance perhaps, as they weigh us up. The silver haired one spreads out in the highest seat and flexes his fingers, a judge testing the waters of his authority.

For some reason, a courtroom makes me laugh. I recall the pounding gavel and the red faces of the accused and accusing, the hysterical voices vying to be heard and the wearisome struggle to comb apart lies and truths.

I don't know why it makes me want to smile. I don't even know if it's out of admiration or disdain. It hurts to think about it. As soon as I start thinking about one inconsistency, I begin to stumble on the other gaping holes of the jigsaw that is my memory.

Why do I have an affinity for court?

Why do I keep rubbing my left arm, convinced that it's not there?

Why do I insist on hearing the phrase, "Because someone has to feed the rabbit," in the back of my mind? What rabbit? What someone? And how do I know that after that phrase, there follows a painful night where I laugh and cry myself to sleep?

"Shh, now." You echo my words, squeezing my left hand that really shouldn't be there. We stand together, your thumb running up and down mine, as the judge makes his decision.

"Today, you will join the Organisation as our Numbers Seven and Eight." Somehow, he manages to appear right in front of us. He walks with grace that would put even you to shame. His lips curve into something that might have once been the way he smiled, but is now an inexplicable reflex.

The Superior pushes your hood back and the tips of his fingers scrape the side of your face, and would it be quite bad if I admit to you that I want to kill him right there and then?

"Recovery time is, on average, eight days. This depends on the amount and intensity of your memories. We find that having a name assists greatly in recuperation. A name grants you identity and a fresh start. A name is a lifelong possession that exists beyond death. Do you have a name?"

He addresses us both.

"Lea."

You simply shake your head. The corner of his mouth twitches, and the Superior seems happy with our responses, or lack thereof.

"Then you are Eight," he says to me. "You will be called Axel. You are Seven." He straightens your hood so that his rests snugly against your back. "From today, you are Saïx."

He looks at you differently as he does to me. You look at him differently as you do to me.

 

 


	3. Isa / Saix: Missing You

**________________________________**

**ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _eleven years before death_ -

____________________________________

 

Apparently, that one-time invite into my house was a lifetime pass, because you started to invite yourself over every day. Each weekday after school, you waited at the gates for me, announced you didn't have to be home until teatime, and proceeded to lead the way. As soon as you went in, you got drinks and carried them (along with my crutches) without being asked. One time, you broke your promise and burst out laughing when you saw me climbing the stairs by scooting up them on my arse. You proclaimed you knew all along I used this method, and then you ran down to join in.

I wound up getting told off a lot because of you. My cousin complained about your overbearing voice; my uncle criticised me for constantly having you over. My aunt was still cross with you for spilling orange juice on the landing.

You were tactless, pushy and oblivious of your tendency to inconvenience others; you behaved spontaneously and liked to change subject without warning or reason; you enjoyed asking nosy questions and laughing at your own jokes.

There were many reasons to dislike someone, but I had yet to find one about you.

**-x-**

One Friday afternoon, you didn't show up. Until it happened, I never thought it possible. But there I was, in a playground completely deserted save for three pigeons and a stray cat eyeing them. I flew into a panic, unsure whether to stay or go, teetering between obstinacy and acceptance.

I felt a rush of silliness, having wittered on about star charts and the excitement of planets in retrograde, convinced they were enough to keep you; I felt so stupid, for actually thinking someone as active and energetic as you had time for a disabled loner like me.

I stood still, chewing my shirt sleeve and coming up with scenarios and reasons to justify your absence. Perhaps my cousin had got to you, and being friends with me wasn't worth the hassle. Perhaps my shy admittance that I might be psychic had made you scoff and run. It was fun while it lasted, though, I found myself thinking.

One whole hour of waiting later, I felt awful for doubting you.

You ran out of the school, cursing. I was cold and hungry and ever so bored, but what a small price to pay to see that grin!

"Detention!" was the first thing you shouted. "No warning whatsoever. I _told_ the teacher I had a place to be, but he just doubled the time and accused me of lying."

I returned your smile, but it was shaky and forced. I had to start walking in order to shield my eyes and you followed, scratching the side of your head. "Are you cross with me, Isa?"

I shook my head, unable to even begin. How could I explain to someone who had it all? For one dreadful hour, I believed it was all over; the thought of losing what – who? – I had become so comfortable around made me sick to the core. I was still reeling from relief and gratitude that you had showed up, still struggling to contain gladness at being proven wrong. 

I kept my voice level, concentrating on using the crutches. "How did you earn detention?"

"Falling asleep in class," you answered, unabashed. "It happens a lot, so next time, go home without me, all right? Wait for ten minutes tops and then go home. I'll catch up with you there and ask your aunt nicely to come in. Tell you what," you added, guilty. "We'll do something different today. Are you starved? Because I am. I know, let's eat out."

And just like that, I flew into my second panic of the day. Out? Where? I stuttered a hasty refusal, but you made no acknowledgement of it. I should have told you sooner that I was a recluse and only enjoyed the outdoors when no one else was around. I didn't like crowds or noise or unpredictability, because the only thing predictable about it was that I'd come back hurt.

You leapt in front of me and started to walk backwards. "I'll take you to one of my favourite cafés."

" _One of_?" I repeated incredulously.

When we arrived at your café of choice (mercifully close, as I was exhausted from being on crutches), I had to reconsider my initial view of you as a boy spoilt rotten by the affluence of his family.

You knew everyone, from the old couple in the corner to the waitress serving us. I could tell that for years on end, you had worked hard to weave yourself into their memories, into the heart of Radiant Garden itself, such that when you waved at another customer falling into the café, tired from work, he waved back and asked how your sister was; such that when we made our order of afternoon cake and juice, the waitress pinched your cheek and said she’d apply the usual discount.

I was certain that everyone here – including you – regarded you as someone who wanted to be remembered; but I could only see you running the same course as me, as someone desperate to find where he belonged.

We exchanged some light banter about which cake to have. You suggested your favourites but then backtracked and insisted I try out the newest, extremely high calorie chocolate gateau slice. When our food arrived and we ate, we fell into a minute of silence, where you downed your juice and asked for more, and I stared into the table to watch the reflection of the ceiling fan.

I had worried, given the frequency of us meeting up, that I'd soon run out of things to talk about and you'd grow tired. I had also fretted that I was a boring person altogether, and had resolved this by distracting you with the plethora of information astrology offered. I told you, amongst many other things, the basic personality traits of a Taurus and explained the twelve houses of an astrological chart. I had always hidden behind the shield that was my hobbies and now, in a bright and bustling café with you sat opposite me, there was nothing to hide behind, and the only logical – and long expected – topic of conversation was my disease.

"…What's it called again?"

"Osteogenesis imperfecta, Type I."

"Have you had it long?"

"Since I was born."

"What about a cure?"

I almost smiled at the hope in your voice. It was one of the first questions I had asked too. "There isn’t one. I have a doctor and physiotherapist who make things better, but OI is for life."

Telling you about OI wasn’t like telling other people.

I had once been part of an astronomy club. My mother had urged me to mingle and socialise, and it was the only club I found remotely interesting. In the first lesson, I handed my note about the disease to the club leader, and she relayed the message to the other students 'to be nice to poor Isa here'. And they were. They helped me when I couldn't lift my telescope, and they pinned the upper corners of my star chart when I couldn't reach. But they asked questions – how did it feel to break a bone? was OI why my eyes were so strange? did OI mean I couldn't jump or run or later, even have sex? – which by themselves were tolerable, but they also wore that certain look, one I hadn't seen you pull yet, one of relief that said, _I'm so glad it wasn't me._

I never returned to that astronomy club. In fact, that very first lesson, I shattered my wrist on purpose so that my mother had to be called in to take me away.

Telling you about OI, as I said, was nothing like this. You barely seemed interested, as though you were asking the questions to be polite; it took you little effort to cast off my symptoms as trivial and unworthy of attention.

"So your bones will always be breaking?"

"Yes. And I’ll always be weak muscled and easy to bruise and well…imperfect, I guess. It’s called osteogenesis _imperfecta_ for a reason. It’s all right,” I added hastily, because I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. “I'm less likely to break the older I get. I'll probably start to lose my hearing, but it's all right," I reiterated, uncertain whether I was trying to convince you or myself.

I didn't elaborate, but you could tell anyway: I really, _really_ did not want to go deaf. I did not want to feel any more isolated. Having one of my senses snatched from me would be more than I could bear. It wouldn't be the same with a hearing aid or a cochlear implant, to have to rely on machinery lodged in me, so that I could hear like everyone else. And while I fretted and worried over my fate, you just threw down your fork and grinned.

"It's a good job my voice is so loud then!" you replied happily, and to further your point, you shouted, "Bill please!" and all heads turned.

I shoved my hands under the table so you wouldn't witness them shaking, so that you wouldn't see that I found your kindness as unbearable as my years of pity and teasing and ignorance. I only knew now, through you, that compassion could be so, _so_ painful; and the funny thing was, you were not even aware you were doing it.

You were, in all honesty, spoiling me rotten. You were giving me everything I had ever wanted and more, filling in the hole my mother had left after she died. Someone to walk back from school with, someone to read my horoscopes to, someone to share my chocolate bar with, someone whose life I could discover and be part of, a small slice of this world I could call my own.

The question wasn't if there was a catch to you, but how I was supposed to repay such an enormous debt.

"Listen," I said, trying to sound spontaneous. You stopped playing with the ice cube in your mouth, and it rattled against your teeth. "We could hang out this weekend as well, if you like. We haven't done that yet."

It was the best I could do. I felt like apologising to you afterwards, for the poor extent of my social capabilities, but you were tapping your chin in thought, your bright green eyes wandering upwards.

"Well, my grandparents are coming over for the weekend." You barely gave my heart the time to sink, before adding, "So yeah, let's hang out! Take me away already!"

"A-are you sure? I mean, if you have relatives to—"

You pulled a strange face, as if I had somehow insulted you. It suddenly occurred to me, that coming over mine – for three weeks on end and now, during weekends too – did not necessarily stem only from the need to see me. You were leaving something behind, consciously making yourself scarce from your own home.

"Don't you like your family?"

"I do," you said, quick to reaffirm. "We're just all wrapped up in our own stuff. It's a bit like this." You took our plates and forks, setting them out in the space between us.  You created a cluster of cutlery in a circle, but not one of them touched another, as though every item had a repelling magnetic field around it. "We're together, though not really. It's just a bit busy, that's all. There's too much going on and no one wants to hear about professional athletics anyway. But hey, it's all right," you said, mimicking my words, "I get a lot of freedom."

Somehow, when you reassured yourself, I felt a little better too. I wasn't alien to your situation, to feel neglected, to be aware of it and still, bitterly insist on remaining the same. We were two extra pieces who had given up trying to squeeze into a completed jigsaw, two hard boiled sweets who accepted they were in a cookie jar, two lost boys who had found a makeshift home in one another because nothing else would offer.

We talked for three hours straight. I tried to cover a variety of topics, abruptly changing subjects the way you did, but I always somehow edged back into my comfort zone that was astrology. Nevertheless, I discovered that your whole family – bar yourself – had aspirations in law. Your mother had been in probate and your older sisters were working to be a mediator or a lawyer. I also learned that you had that annoying ability to do well in school without trying, and you frequently missed morning lessons and played in the park instead. Through our light argument about who would pay our café bill, I found out that you spent money frivolously because your father was too busy and too rich to notice or care.

At seven o'clock, you walked me home, talking excitedly about the prospects of tomorrow, merely to fill in the silence. I only spoke to you when I got to my front door. Feeling silly, because I was unconsciously behaving like I was back from a first date, I tapped your arm and said, "Thanks. I had a nice time."

"Me too. See you tomorrow then," you replied. I caught you before you could dash off, reaching for that part inside you – your heart perhaps? – that had been ignored and ached to be noticed.

"Also, Lea. I think you should go for it. Being a professional athlete, that is. Imagine the look on your dad's face when you get gold medals and sponsorships."

You treated my rehearsed, shamefully monotonous compliment as though it was a gift. You grinned and hugged yourself, teetering on the spot. "I can try. Here," you said, reaching into your back pocket for a pen, "is something for you. Prepare to be amazed, Isa."

You scribbled something on my hand, waved goodbye and ran off. When I glanced down to decipher your scrawl, I realised that it didn't even take ten seconds for me to start missing you.

_imperfecta = i am perfect_

  

 

**____________________________**

**SAÏX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

\- _eight days after birth_ -

_______________________________

 

Every day, I wake up knowing exactly who you are, but nothing about who I am. I didn't know amnesia could be so clean cut and selective. Or maybe, this is all there is to me.

I want to see you.

Eight days have passed – dull, eventless, repetitive days that, in this castle of perpetual night, I can only separate by each call to dinner – and I have not been allowed.

"Your memory is currently very fragile," Vexen had said to me on my first day. "Contact with Axel will undoubtedly affect and tamper with the accuracy of what you remember. For now, keep to yourself and rearrange the fragments of your mind so that you control your memories, and not the other way round. Here, this will be of assistance. Consider it a diary of sorts. Write anything that crosses your mind – no matter how trivial or senseless – and fill up all the pages."

Vexen thinks otherwise, but I believe it simply isn't possible to note one's stream of consciousness in such a way. I think faster than I write and I really cannot keep up with the pace at which I'm running. From mindless instinct to conscious thoughts, I jump and revert and make up and digress and forget, with no indicator to tell me where to start, where to end, or if any of it is even real.

My first page is this:

_My name is Saïx. I don't like it very much. People have to say my name three times before I realise I am being spoken to. Taurus and Virgo are very compatible signs. I have to sleep in a certain position because my joints often slip out of place. If a javelin breaks while being thrown or in the air, the throw still counts. You taught me how to laugh until my ribs hurt._

_It's all right._

_Today, I will break one femur, one arm bone, four ribs and a wrist. My arms ache. I wrecked your career with a single word. There are seventy-eight cards in a Tarot deck, but one day I woke up with fourteen less. I love you. I love you. I love you._

"Am I writing the wrong things?"

"There isn't a right or wrong answer. It's not even an assessment, more so an exercise that assists in unravelling your uncertainties into something comprehensible. Separating these thoughts from one's mind has proved particularly helpful in relieving pressure, in both your case and my own."

I have only ever dined with Vexen – I use the term _dine_ loosely, as it's just me eating while Vexen does a cross examination of my diary – so it is a slight surprise when tonight, I am joined by the Superior. He cuts an impressive figure in the seat next to me, flicking through pages and pages of nonsensical writing with enough ethereal talent to make his boredom look elegant.

"You are finished?" he asks of my meal tray. I nod and set it aside. He snaps his fingers and a lithe creature twists and slithers, as if swimming through the air, to take the food away.

I'm slowly getting used to the mechanics of the castle. Those creatures are called Dusks; they are servants to the Superior, whom we only address by that name or Sir. We all have a uniform, a name, an allocated room and a number. The days are mainly dedicated to nursing me back to health as I continue to write until my hand seizes up. I wonder if I am in an asylum or a jail. Neither prospect seems to worry me. I know that if you're around, then wherever I am, I'm home.

"You wrote an unfinished phrase on this page," says the Superior, and I glance down at the book, at handwriting I fail to recognise. At some point, I have scrawled in the centre, _at least_ , and left it at that. "What is its significance?"

I shake my head. I’m still rather wary of meeting the Superior’s calculating gaze. For most of the evening, I have used reflective surfaces to sneak peeks at him, wondering (only afterwards) why his sunset eyes and silver lashes are so compelling to look at. "I don't know. The more I read what I have written, the less I'm convinced I wrote it."

"That is progress, in some way. Effectively, what you are doing is drawing a distinction between this life and the one you dream about. A distinction that _is_ there, before you suggest that I am indoctrinating you," he adds with a small twitch of his mouth, not unkindly. In fact, the Superior has been anything but unkind. He has been patient, despite my every other answer being, "I don't know," and he has worked hard to help me untangle the mess of my mind. Or should I say, Isa's.

"Vexen told me these memories aren't mine."

"And what do you make of that, Saïx?"

"…I don't know."

If I disclaim them, then I will be disclaiming you. And I can't do that because you are all I have, but it makes sense, it makes so much sense. I'm contorted and broken up into little pieces so that I can twist myself into Isa's shadow. I shouldn't have to do it, not when Isa is dead. He screwed up somewhere and now, I'm living out his punishment for it.

I can't remember how I died.

"That's expected," the Superior says of it, still scrutinising my diary. "We repress what hurts us, convinced that if we cannot remember it, then it never happened. Don't overexert yourself. It _has_ been eight days, the estimated time for settlement," he remarks, correctly guessing my train of thought, "but progress is recognised over accomplishment, and you are promising."

When I ask him if I am promising because you're not, his lips thin and he says that actually, you've exceeded his expectations.

I smile inwardly, because it is unwritten law that you always reach the finish line before I do, so that you can pull me across the threshold. Wait just a little bit more. I'll catch up to you.

The Superior stands up, flicking a wrist to suggest I follow. "You have worked hard today, Saïx. It is not easy to accept who you no longer are when it is natural to believe otherwise. Follow me, and I will take you to Axel. He may be the stimulus you need."

**-x-**

The Superior is a third of the way down when he realises there are no footsteps behind him. He turns round, glances up, lifts an eyebrow. "What is it?"

Suddenly, I have found myself unable to move.

We're only on a staircase that snakes down the castle wall, severe white against the windless and lightless night wrapped around us, but I freeze up as if any further movement will be the end of me.

"I don't know."

And I really don't. Something has me rooted to the spot, like an invisible pair of hands weighing my ankles to the floor.

Isa?

The Superior walks back up to stand next to me, and his golden gaze flickers between my face and what lies ahead.

Stairs. These are stairs.

"I don't do stairs."

"Are you afraid of them?" he asks, more curious than convinced.

"It's Isa. He won't let me."

I know it doesn't make sense, because Isa's dead—no he's not, I _am_ Isa—no I'm not, I simply want to be him—no, I _am_ him, his vessel at least—or is that too much to ask for—

"Will this do?" says the Superior. He carries on walking and somehow, the stairs have gone and in the blink of an eye, I am standing at a skyway, a sloping, zigzagging ramp that will take me straight to you; and it _will_ do, because my muscles relax and I am – or Isa is? – no longer so worried.

I go down the ramp slowly, carefully, still unable to comprehend the change. Moreover, shouldn't I be _careering_ down this?

With you, yelling from the freedom and me, shouting because I have never gone so fast.

On wheels, I mean.

"Saïx," the Superior calls, to remind me who I am. I come to a hallway and Xigbar gives a small wave in greeting.

"Axel is just finishing up," he says. He twirls a sniper's gun round his wrist. It's a little strange because I can promise you he wasn't holding it before. "Check him out. He's not quite on Xaldin's level, but he's pretty vicious. This one, I'm guessing, is still just pretty." And Xigbar uses the gun tip to tap my shoulder, a sneer working its way onto his face. He skilfully twists it into a smile. "But in time, eh? No point in rushing and risking you damage before you've even been put into the field. Or are we moving him forward now?" he asks the Superior.

"We're moving Axel forward for now. Saïx will join but serve as a variable."

"Oh, smart," says Xigbar. "We can see if he'll miraculously curb his element when there's something there he cares about. Come on, Saïx. Take a look at what difference eight days has made."

I approach a half wall, another viewing platform from which I can observe the dark city the castle sits upon. However, when I glance down, a training ground comes into view and there you are.

You’re not quite on your knees, but Lexaeus is piling the pressure. The earth shakes and you get thrown off balance; you summon back a silver wheel and it protects you in the nick of time, just as Lexaeus sees an opening. I watch you use your arms to bring up a torrent of fire, the flames erratic and out of control; I watch you leap and dash and struggle and battle on.

It has been eight days, and you have developed the body of a warrior, with fire at your command and two wheels that cut through air with the same searing force of your glare.

I have a book of nonsense.

“It’s because unlike you, Axel knows who he is.” Xigbar leans on the sill, idly examining his gun. Then he aims and shoots, yet the purple dart dies as it collides against your makeshift shield of fire. You don’t even acknowledge the disturbance. “He’s definite, unmoving, stubborn as a bull.”

“Taurus.” The thought just comes to me.

“What?” Xigbar says. He shrugs and continues. “Axel has made a decision on who he is, but you still waver, don’t you? Who you are and who you _want_ to be – these are two things that don’t coincide, and you keep being dragged back to this problem, desperate to find a solution. That’s what hinders you, prevents you from assigning yourself an element and uh, how to put it nicely, actually being _useful_ to the Organisation.”

At some point, the Superior has stood at my left side, and I ask him, “Organisation?” Yet the Superior looks too bothered and agitated by something to answer, and not even your blaring columns of dancing flames are enough to tear his gaze away from the sky.

“We’re the Organisation,” Xigbar replies on his behalf. “We all have a common goal: to retrieve what we’re missing, what we’re incomplete without.”

I stare back at him, amazed at his coldness, and I know that we’re oil and water, that we don’t –and never will – mix. How can Xigbar miss the same that I am missing? He didn’t sit in a room for eight days and think of you more than anything. He doesn’t stand here right now and wish to leap into that fire and drag you into his arms.

Because it doesn’t even take ten seconds for me to start missing you.


	4. Lea / Axel: Fault Line

**_________________________________**

**LEA, THE BOY WHO'D DISAPPEAR**

\- _eleven years before death_ -

_____________________________________

The first Saturday after you got your cast removed, I dragged you along to the park so that we could play together. I was agile and unable to resist going out of my way to jump on crispy leaves; you were weak and quick to feel winded just from walking. I was immune to the cold and could escape in cargos, a tee and my dad's cashmere scarf; you were still shivering in a puffy blue coat two sizes too big.

I knew we were unbearably different. I also knew it didn't matter, because I was steadily learning how to accommodate both your disease and your eccentricities. We played light games of catch as opposed to the rough tackle football I was used to. You were nervous about jumping, so we log rolled into leafy mounds instead. I did gentle pushes when you were on the swing, so that you didn't strain to hold on, and could read out our horoscopes for the coming week or natter about an upcoming eclipse.

You were a little overzealous when it came to your interests and that trait, in combination with OI, did little for your social standing. I couldn't quite get my head round the logic, but I wasn't going to complain, not when such unfounded prejudice meant that I could have you all for myself. I never had myself down as the sharing sort of person and when you came along, I became dead certain of that.

I denied possessiveness on my part, and put it down to overreliance on yours. That was, perhaps, the first splinter of breaking wood; the millimetre wide fault line of an earthquake to come.

"I don't really care much for OI," I said to you, when you once tried to apologise for the compromises I had to make. "I don't really care that you can't cartwheel or jump or do half the stuff I can do. You're still my friend."

You smiled, teeth slightly crooked and cheeks a warm shade of pink. I knew you were worth every compromise and every blow – because some people _did_ care that you had OI.

Your cousin wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew we were friends. When at home, he couldn't harm you under your uncle's watchful eye; and when at school, he had no time for a disabled loner, especially when any damage you took would be paid for right from his family's pocket. You were safe.

So that's why they went for me. I wouldn't have had it any other way. One lunchtime, they cornered me in the cloakroom and we got into a fight. Well, more of a beating, really. It was four against one, and I had my back turned for the first hit.

"Okay, listen to this, guys," your cousin said. "He meets up with 'flat pack' every day after school. _And_ they meet up on Saturdays now. Sunday's a miss though, because 'flat pack' has physiotherapy appointments. He's a cripple. But hey, at least he has a disease to blame for his weirdness. Can't say the same for you, fire crotch."

One of them emptied my school bag over my head, but I didn't mind.

Another yanked off my dad's blue cashmere scarf and vandalised it with a felt tip pen, and I didn't mind that either.

"We'll break you the same way he breaks, if you carry on being friends with him." A foot came crashing down on my hand as I went to retrieve my books.

"Time out," I said between blows and shoves. I kept my bag and belongings close to my chest, then bent down and pretended to pick something up. "Whoa, what's this? Some of my brain cells! Guys, you should've told me your stupidity was contagious. Gotta go, see you later!"

I didn't mind taking the hits. Better me than you. In some way, I was channelling my dad and how he too, routinely stood up on someone's behalf, though he had more grace to the art.

I was doing something right, and every kick, insult, joke, punch, vandalising act – each one just reaffirmed my suspicions: that you made me matter, and that was worth protecting.

**-x-**

We never saw each other during school hours. You were two years older than me and all of your lessons were in a different part of school. You once said you used your lunchtimes to work in the library by yourself – and wanted to keep it that way.

I was really surprised when one day during break, you burst into my classroom and looked round – rather crazily at that – for me.

"H-hello," you said, breathless. You were clutching a small cardboard box. "My teacher got us making _pinhole cameras_." You spat out the words, disgusted. I remembered with a sudden jolt that there was going to be an eclipse today. You had been unable to stop talking about it for the last week. "It's not the same with a pinhole camera," you complained. "I wouldn't even be looking at the eclipse, it doesn't work like that. It just uses the light available to project an image of an eclipse using shadows, that's all. I-it's not the same. I brought in my eclipse viewer – look, see?" you shook a pair of chunky glasses in front of my face "—but I can't use it because it's _not fair_ on the rest of the class. I've been waiting ages to see an eclipse and—"

"Isa." I patted your arm, because you were starting to look quite deranged now. "Calm down."

You trailed off, and took in a sharp breath when you realised you had an audience. Some of my classmates were giggling; others had their eyebrows raised. You were someone who spent most of his time looking up, and with your head in the clouds so often, I could let you off for getting a little dizzy. Others were not so forgiving.

"…Sorry," you muttered, awkward.

"That's all right." I shrugged, swinging myself off the desk. "What time's the eclipse again?"

"Just before eleven. I'm sorry," you said again, not quite able to ignore the sniggers, "I shouldn't have come here."

"No, I'm glad you did," I answered, and I meant it. I was the only one in my class who had a friend in the upper years. It was pretty cool. "Listen, at quarter to eleven, why don't you leave class – say you need the toilet or something – and fetch your stuff, then meet me by the lunch hall?"

"Um…all right then." I handed back your offensive pinhole camera, which you had thrown onto the table in frustration, and you took it as a sign to leave. As soon as you did, my class erupted into a clashing chorus of gossip and snickering. That much I could let go. But when one boy shouted, "He's a lunatic," I had to react.

I didn't like how people opted to tease and insult, because it was easier than attempting to understand. So I gave him what he deserved and punched him, _just_ as my teacher came back in to witness it and give me a detention.

**-x-**

At quarter to eleven, I packed up and snuck out of class. You were already at the lunch hall, pale and jumpy. You looked, in all honesty, ready to faint.

"Lea, I don't know what came over me," you began, unable to let the matter go. "I can't believe how stupid I am."

"Don't say that. Come on, we don't have time to waste." I led you through the school kitchen, guiding you round the counters and rows of sinks. I kicked open the back door, looped round the school block and jimmied the side door.

"What are you doing?" you asked, and you glanced back at the way we came.

"You've never bunked school before?"

You shook your head, and I grinned at what would later become the second splinter, the _two_ millimetre wide fault line – that I was the one destined to show you the ropes, and heaven forbid if anyone else tried.

"Well, this is how you do it." And I opened the door, crossed the alleyway and kicked open the gate to a small house. "It's easy to escape school by using the caretaker's back garden and coming out the front."

"Won't he see us?"

"Nope. He's busy caretaking the school – duh!" I didn't turn round in time to catch your flushed cheeks, but it wouldn't have stopped me anyway. Once I had an idea, I wasn't going to let it go, and I suppose the same principle applied to my hold on you.

I half-led half-dragged you out the caretaker's, down the road and up a hill to the park. The wind was biting and bitter, but I was quite certain it wasn't to blame for your shaking.

"Wait, Lea," you panted, not because you were having second thoughts. You stopped to catch your breath and grip your side. I now felt guilty for the trouble I was putting you through (because I only thought of these things when it was too late), but you glanced at your watch and persisted.

"It'll be a great view from the top of this hill, I promise," I said. You nodded fiercely, clamped down on your bottom lip and picked up the pace. At some point, you had stopped clinging onto my coat sleeve, because when we reached a good spot and were about to sit down, I realised that your spindly fingers were gripping my hand like a vice.

I didn't think anything of it, and neither did you, to an extent. You just let go to fumble with your eclipse viewer, and though you never resumed the gesture, you didn't apologise for it either. My mum always held hands with me and my sisters, and even my dad. You held hands with someone when you wanted to keep them close; it only made sense that we too, held hands.

We sat cross legged with our backs against a tree stump, and the sun framed by two oaks and a misty horizon. I asked you – despite knowing the answer – if you were excited.

"Yes," you said, fitting on your viewer. "I've never seen an eclipse before. And this one is particularly significant because it's in Capricorn, so the eclipse, which obviously signifies new beginnings by itself, also indicates that now is a good time to start planning what we want to build or accomplish. Because you know, that's what Capricorn is connected to."

"So for a few minutes, it's going to go pitch black at daytime? That's pretty cool."

"Not pitch black. It's only partial, so you'll just see the moon crossing some of the sun. And you're right, by the way," you added. "This is a much nicer spot."

"Yeah, much nicer than back at school in the crowd, with a tacky pinhole camera."

You gave me a grateful smile, looking twice as odd with those chunky glasses on. However, you suddenly whipped them off and before I could stop you, you snapped the viewer in half. "Here." You passed one of the halves. "Watch with me?"

To this day, I still feel incredibly guilty for having made you break your expensive eclipse gear that your mum (presumably) had bought for you – because I never actually used it. Eclipses didn't interest me, being in Capricorn wasn't 'significant' to me, and I sure wasn't going to start planning or building because some conveniently aligned objects were telling me to. I did like, however, the enthrallment that befell you once you got started on your hobby. I could listen to you prattle on all day about Nodes, cardinal signs and Ascendants, and while I failed to follow, I always came out feeling great.

I knew you couldn't be yourself around anyone but me, and that privilege was the third splinter and the third millimetre.

I grinned as I watched you witness the eclipse, your face mirroring the phenomenon with clear transitions. You went from edgy and anticipated, to utterly captivated, and then to horribly disappointed when it came to a finish. You had been waiting so long for the eclipse, and now that it was over, what else did you have to look forward to?

You wore a dark look, darker than the eclipse's climax had ever rendered you, as you perhaps thought along the same lines as me.

"Hey, Isa," I said, and lightly nudged your ribs. I was still very afraid of physical contact, given your bone fragility and the fact that every time I did do such a thing, I felt inexplicably giddy. "It's not as great as seeing an eclipse, but do you want to come round my house this weekend?"

I fiddled with my dad's watch, channelling my awkwardness into it so that when you looked up at me, you couldn't spot my nerves. I wasn't about to tell you any time soon, but when I invited friends over, the answer had only ever been no. I had always asked too early, been too eager to assume that I finally had a friend. That was why I had waited out the weeks, staying round yours until it was 'safe' and I wouldn't have another burn of rejection to add to my ever-growing collection.

"You're all right with that?" you asked me, packing away your eclipse viewer. "You don't keep me away because I'm embarrassing?"

"Actually, it's more my family that's embarrassing," I countered, somewhat pleased at my response which, in its quick delivery, stomped over any doubts you had. "We could even do a sleepover! Or go camping in the garden. That way, we can eat over a fire and you don't have to listen to my mum whinge at dinnertime."

I listed off more ideas to persuade and encourage you. You relented in a few minutes, giving a tiny nod and as polite as ever, saying you'd very much like to come round mine.

"…But I'm quite high maintenance," you said nervously. "I have a special mattress. I have to sleep in a certain position because my joints often slip out of place."

"Not a problem," I exclaimed, not really comprehending your concern. (If it took twenty fluffed up pillows to lure you over, so be it.) You grinned – and it was fast becoming a sight I loved and longed to see – and stretched out your legs to move your feet in circles.

You surveyed the sun through the trees. You looked perplexed, as though you couldn't quite believe that this was post-eclipse, and nothing was different at all. "I don't really feel like going back to class now," you said.

"Then don't."

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. You didn't want to leave; I didn't want you to, either. I wanted to hang onto you for as long as I could, because every minute I was without you, you were surely with someone else; and that very thought made me sick to the core, like I was being torn apart, made me want to throttle something, made me feel like I was being denied the right to breathe.

Were ten year olds _ever_ meant to think like that? 

 

**______________________________________**

**AXEL, THE FLURRY OF DANCING FLAMES**

\- _nine days after birth_ -

__________________________________________

 

My whole life – since Sports Day with the wish jar and the forlorn face that so reflected my own – has been dedicated to keeping you. I grew up knowing exactly what I wanted, knowing that it was a one way route to destruction.

I have hugged you, held hands with you, made out with you (drunkenly) in alleyways, slept with you so many times that I have memorised every contour of your body. I have upset you, hurt you, pleased you and loved you. Nothing measured my accomplishment better than your scowls and shivers and smiles and tears – all of which could be traced back to me.

You sit opposite me now, one hundred times more beautiful than anyone else and yet one hundred miles off Isa, and I realise that I have to start all over again.

I have to claim you and keep you, make you mine, before someone else does.

You play with your breakfast, twirling your fork and cutting your pancakes into tiny pieces. You seem undecided and at odds with yourself which, Xigbar explains, is why your progress is being hindered.

In some way, I feel guilty in running ahead of you, establishing my position as Number Eight. It’s not right that I have it so easy, because I know exactly who I want to be. It’s not exactly fair that I’m so in denial that that certainty burns me through their tasks and training and analysis. Xigbar once joked that my element of fire stems from my inability to be controlled, to listen. It’s not like that, though. It’s more that fire has no sympathy for what it touches – just a desire to taint and consequently, claim.

You learned that the hard way.

In stark contrast to my progress, you have nothing to show for your eight days of recovery, just a book of riddles (so I'm told – I've never seen it) of you desperately trying to make sense. You're just trying to remember who you are.

"That is _so_ my field," I remind you. I create a tiny dot of fire, a flickering dash of scarlet that coerces you to look up. You swat it away lightly, a smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. "What are you thinking about?"

"Stairs," you answer. "Do I have…I don't know, a history with stairs?"

"Well," I say slowly, "there was this one time when the stairs, they dissed you real bad, and after that, you couldn't really make amends and had to sever ties."

You laugh, and the very sound makes the other six look up from their meals. I wonder if they too, feel their breath hitch in their throats and their thoughts clog up like a traffic jam behind _fuck, I love that sound_ when your laughter – more like a comforted sigh, really – reaches their ears. You rest a cheek on your hand and pull a face, the same despairing look you always adopt when you silently plead for me to slow down and let you catch up.

"You don't remember?" I ask, and you shake your head. "You had an accident once. It was serious, pretty much scarred you for life." I recall the horror of seeing you tumble down the ridged concrete, the ear shattering sound of your leg bone snapping, the one second silence where you just lay there, stunned.

"The Superior says I have a form of dissociative amnesia," you explain.

"Because I really know what _that_ means."

And you laugh again, and everyone looks up again, and I smile inwardly because I'm the only one who can make you laugh like that.

"It means my brain shuts off certain memories."

"Which ones?"

"The ones that hurt. Defence mechanism." You push your tray away and I notice that you've only had one bite. "I thought I'd let you know. I don't want you to be offended."

"Offended?" I repeat, and I can't quite hold back the derisive snort. You've never upset me; it's always been the other way round. "Why would I be offended?"

You lift your eyes to meet mine and I notice they're perfectly shaped and lacking strength, like a statue's eternally blank stare. "Because I don't actually know who you are."

**-x-**

"All right, here's what I have devised for you. Hey, Vexen! Give the neophytes a round of applause. They're going on their first mission today."

"I'll give them a round of applause if they return in one piece," Vexen answers. Xigbar rolls his eye and turns back to us. He's not too bad a guy – quite funny, amicable, a little snarky for my liking – but you seem to clash with him right off the bat. He tends to dig at your uselessness; you like to ignore him and talk through me instead.

"Your mission is in Twilight Town. A nice secluded location where you can take out Heartless in peace. I'll portal you there and in one hour's time, I'll come and pick you guys up – or what's left of you," he adds with a shrug. "Axel, see if you can rein in that fire and have a degree of control over it. Saïx, the Superior seems convinced that watching Axel will prompt you into discovering your element. I know otherwise, so let's be realistic and assign you an easier task of serving as back up."

"I can back you up," you affirm, bypassing Xigbar's gaze completely and glancing up at me.

"Good luck, you two." Xigbar sends us off and closes the portal after us.

As soon as we arrive in Twilight Town, I round on you. I haven't seen a sunset in years or felt the warmth of the dying day, but I don't have time for those. Instead, I demand an explanation. "You really don't know who I am?"

"It was a bad choice of words."

"No, don't backpedal. You meant what you said."

You look unusually agitated and harassed. Your gaze – so eerie and unfamiliar – wanders around the terrace and zeroes in on the shadowy creatures that haunt the side streets, waiting for their sentence. "I went eight days without you. I've only had these scattered memories to fall back on. And now that I'm back with you, you're not much like how I perceived originally."

"You're distinguishing between Lea and Axel?" I translate correctly. You know what? Fuck this Twilight Town, it's too sunny for us. We ought to be back at the Castle, because your face will match its blank white walls so nicely. "There _isn't_ a difference. We're one and the same."

"The Superior says there's a crucial difference." You look up, noticing the evening glow at last, but even that isn't enough to cut into your vacant expression.

“And what’s this crucial difference?” I demand, and I give a derisive snort when you shrug and admit, “I don’t know.”

“…Perhaps the only difference is the name,” I say after a few seconds. “The guys here seem very into names.”

You’re not convinced. “It doesn’t feel right any more.”

You don't elaborate. In all honesty, I’m not sure I want you to. It’s bruising and upsetting to think that something doesn’t sit right with us. There’s an elephant in the room, but neither of us know what it is or how to get rid of it. “Is it because of your memory loss?” I try next, reaching out for you. Instead, a chakram materialises in my hand, and a feathered line of flames lick at its circumference.

You glance back at the creatures, remembering our mission. “Sorry, I shouldn't be distracting you but backing you up."

"If you want to stop distracting me, you have to do something about that face first."

You wince. So do I. I wonder if I'm just a stranger hitting on you. Quickly, before we lose track of our conversation, I swing the chakram to create a ring of fire at the alley’s entrance, cutting off the shadowy creatures.

“Are you saying that you can’t remember anything about me?”

“No. Everything up until Radiant Garden’s fall is crystal clear. After that, things start to get hazy.” You toe the ground, drawing circles and triangles.

“After we legged it to Traverse Town, you mean?” I neglect to add the significance of that point in our lives. It’s nothing to be proud of. “Do you remember the escape? When I pulled you into the ship and we only had each other left?”

“I remember _Lea_ pulling me,” you answer, suddenly mulish, and this stabbing pain that starts at my ribs and cuts into my throat – this must be how it feels every time I let you down.

 “We’re one and the same,” I repeat, because the more I say it, the truer it becomes.

“Lea and Isa are dead. They did something wrong, and we’re receiving the punishment. I don’t have a purpose, or a past, not even a full set of memories to fall back on. For now, the Organisation is all I have. The Superior knows the position I’m in; he understands why I struggle to be either Isa or Saïx. It’s because who I am and who I want to be don’t coincide. Yet,” you add as an afterthought.

Two words stick out to me the most, like a black smudge on an otherwise white canvas. “You sound like a textbook,” I spit at you. “And it’s called _Brainwashing 101_. Listen to yourself, Isa. How many times are you starting your sentences with, ‘The Superior’?”

You stare at me. Apparently, it takes a long time for words to sink in. “…I’m sorry.” You rub the back of your head, eyebrows furrowed. “I had no idea I was doing it.”

“And doesn’t that frighten you?”

You continue rubbing, tugging at your long hair. It’s as though you crave a bit of friction, a raw and direct sensation to remind you that you're here and not there.

“The Superior isn’t your answer, Isa. If anything, he’s part of the problem.”

And I swear on my life – as worthless as it is – that something lifts from you. A veil, a shadow of doubt, a curse even. Colour floods back into your face and you pull what can easily be mistaken as an unconscious twitch of the mouth – if I haven’t seen it dozens of times before to know its true meaning.

“Hey, don’t worry.” I cup your face in my hands, and screw it if I _am_ a stranger hitting on you. "I'll make sense of things and find a way out of this mess. You can rely on me."

That's irony at its finest, and it hurts like hell. I push my luck and move to close the gap between us. It does little to comfort either party. You're right here and yet, you're so out of my grasp that until I feel your lips against mine, I would not have ruled you out as a ghost or an echo. You draw back first, fingers resting at my coat zip, forehead at my nose. You look round at the crawling ring of fire and ask, "…What am I going to do?"

"You get in tune. It's difficult to explain, but the way I see it, tearing yourself into two isn't going to help. You have to pick a side eventually. The Organisation's banking on your memory loss to make you decide to be their Saïx–" I spit out your new name, loathing the resounding hiss to it "–because it's an easy route, and letting them give you a name and a number is their way of claiming ownership. Be Isa," I persuade you, and bite down on the words, _for my sake_. "We'll work together – team up – until we find a way back home. Axel's a guise. Make Saïx just your guise and that's your side picked."

 _My side_ , I swallow back. I run my fingers through your hair which, despite its length, is so unruly and wild at the top of your head. You shut your eyes, not out of lazy comfort but from the need to think, to tip the scale of the balance you stand on.

It's your memory loss, I decide, that's to blame when you resent our proximity and take two steps back. "Your mission," you explain, but I smack it aside.

"Fuck it, it's nothing life threatening."

Losing you, however, is.

It's your memory loss, your fucking memory loss, that puts us on two separate pages of the same book, where we're adjacent when we're meant to be together. You can't get your head round it. You don't understand the burning feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I have swallowed a ton of lava, whenever you talk about someone who isn't me. You have no idea how sickened I feel when I think that the Superior has laced himself into your thoughts, your mind, the very words you speak.

"Saïx is just the name you adopt when the Organisation wants you to play agent." I move forwards. My lips ghost the tip of your ear – it's _the_ spot – and you find your way back to me. "We'll play along to their games, but on _our_ agenda. Doesn't that sound more worthwhile than handing yourself over to them, letting them utilise your memory loss to their advantage?"

You nod, and you can't possibly imagine the weight that lifts off me when you do.

I have you back. I'm going to be okay.You're going to be okay, because I'm not going to make the same mistakes. I know the potholes; I can't fall into them if I know they're there.

"Right," I say with finality. "Back to this mission."

You pull away from me, and that might be disappointment on your face. I summon my chakrams and make for the alleyway. I think that by running from you, I can outrun the nagging tugs inside of me.

Your lack of memory means I have a second chance. I can tamper with you, rewrite our story to cover my faults that caused our destruction.

I can redeem myself without you ever knowing you’ve forgiven me.

Who am I to criticise the Superior for manipulating you?

I'm doing exactly the same.

One chakram whirrs round my wrist, in time with my frazzled, conflicting thoughts.

"Hey," you suddenly call across from the terrace, and there's a pause before you say, "Lea?"

I stop. That you might be reading my mind fills me with dread. "What is it?"

You smile, raking back your hair. You have a voice that lingers. “I knew you’d be fire.”


	5. Isa / Saix: Bone of Contention

**________________________________**

**ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _eleven years before death_ -

___________________________________

 

I was, in all honesty, expecting the family from hell when I first came over your house. I had listened to countless tales about your mother’s complaining and your father’s disappointment in you, and had drawn up in my mind a picture of your household, but only with the colours you had given me. My perception turned out to be grossly inaccurate.

Your mother had stress worn into her face, yet when we walked through the front door, she looked at me, smiled and said, “You must be Isa. Lea doesn’t shut up about you.” And her hand grazed the top of your head as you passed. Your younger sister was – true to your word – slightly irritating and pestering, but I appreciated her attention all the same. She, like you, found my disease to be the ‘selling point’ to me, and asked, before even introducing herself, how I knew the difference between a hairline fracture and a proper break.

“Elenar, shut up,” you said. “Sorry,” you added to me. “Hey, you want to see the rabbit, right?”

“Is that okay?” I set my bags down in the hallway, covering a wince from the strain with a quick smile.

“Sure! Why are you still here?” You turned to Elenar and gave her a small nudge. “Don’t you have homework?”

“It’s a Friday. Anyway, it’s my house too. I can do what I like. Hazel’s in the conservatory, Isa.” Elenar pointed past the kitchen to a half glassed door. “She really smells. Probably about as much as _you_ do.” She gave you a shove and you shoved her back, and there might have been a quick swearword under your breath too.

For all your complaints about your family, I wasn’t sure you meant half the things you said. I detected no true hostilities, just comfort, really. You would have argued that I was so without a family, I would have given anything to be in your position – to have siblings and expectations, to still have a mother to scold me.

“Here you go. I warn you, she’s heavy.” You slid open the hutch door and the rabbit crept forwards into your hands. “Bunnymoon, meet Isa.”

You eased the rabbit into my arms. I cradled her against my chest, afraid of dropping her. “Bunnymoon?” I repeated, and Elenar rolled her eyes, tucking back a strand of blonde hair.

“He changed her name. Mum named her Hazel – because of her colour, obviously – but since Lea looks after the rabbit most of the time, he thinks he can rename her to—”

“Bunnymoon,” you said triumphantly. “For your information, she still bites you, whatever she’s called. Now go away, Isa’s not here to see you.”

Elenar scowled, gave you one last weak push and then flounced off. You began to stroke the top of Bunnymoon’s head, and when your fingers accidentally grazed my collarbone, my heart rate grew so fast that I forgot for a second that I was supposed to breathe.

“You’re a fat rabbit, and you’re lazy to boot,” you exclaimed, and grinned up at me. “She’s kept in her hutch unless I’m home, and then she stays with me. She prefers being with me. Everyone else just ignores her or complains about her being germy. So anyway, I bet you’re wondering how Bunnymoon got her name?” You didn’t give me time to answer. “Well, I read somewhere that if you look at the full moon, you can kinda see the shape of a bunny in it. I was wondering if we could use that telescope of yours and try and find it tonight? You okay?”

I shifted Bunnymoon higher against me, grinning a second too late; but there was no way I was going to tell you that for one bizarre moment, I found myself relating to your pet rabbit more than anything or any _one_ else in the world.

**-x-**

On the first day of spring, where I could feel the warmth of morning sun long before I actually saw it, I woke up with a feeling of dread in my stomach. I sat up in bed and began my normal routine of persuading my stiff muscles to work, but I was not quite able to ignore the rapid beating of my heart. I swung my legs out of bed and announced to no one in particular, that today I was going to break my femur, tibia, four ribs and my wrist.

**-x-**

My mother had been a clairvoyant. She had been able to develop her psychic links to the point that premonitions came to her pretty much every day. Her most favourite premonition was from twelve years ago, when she did the final stitch to her embroidery and just _knew_ that she’d have a baby boy and her life would be complete. She told me it often and it was, second to her embrace, the most effective way to cheer me up.

On the night she died, I came to the conclusion that all of her talent and accomplishment with the psychic force had been transferred to me. That I had her ability eased my grief somewhat, but you were the only person I could talk to about it.

“That’s so cool,” you said fervently, when I nervously admitted today that I had had another premonition of sorts, the way my mother had always done.

“You think it’s cool?” I said, a little grumpy. “Aren’t you going to ask why my mother didn’t predict her falling down some stairs and dying?”

You gave me a disapproving look, which wasn’t too far off your father’s default expression. “I wouldn’t say anything like that, that’s horrible. But what’s the premonition? Oh! It’s my history test tomorrow, isn’t it? Tell me I pass it!” You put your palms together and apparently addressed the heavens. “Please, _please_ , make me pa— _ow_!” You crashed into the side of a half wall.

The prayer sounded a little strange coming from a class ace like you, but I knew you were on rocky grounds with your father at the moment. You kept missing lessons and going to sleep in class; you had argued with him that so long as you got good grades, what did it matter? But he continued to grill you because the principle was what you were failing to understand, and I rather agreed with him.

“Did you turn up to all your lessons today?” I asked you. We were walking back on a wordless agreement to stay round yours tonight.

“Missed the first two,” you admitted. “I used the time wisely, though, honest. Trained up on the tracks. I’m getting myself ready. Spring is _the_ season for sports tryouts, and I’m going to try and get into as many athletic teams as possible. I’ll get into javelin, no problem, but I also want to do discus, the sprint, hammer throw, the relay, high jump, long jump, maybe the hurdles if I have time.”

“That’s like…every event possible,” I said, though I had no doubt that you would ace all of them.

“Yeah. I was only in four teams last year, so I’m going to try and get into all eight this year.” You laughed happily, and a few passing students gave you a look, perhaps to scoff at your ambitions or perhaps like me, to wonder how it was possible to laugh so freely, it was as though you were immune to hurt.

“So I guess you can’t come round mine much,” I checked with you.

“Well, I’ll need to train for the tryouts, and then train for the actual events when I get picked for the team.” You poked my ribs, and it was all you needed to do to work a smile out of me. “You can come along too. There’s loads of seats in the stands and you can watch and cheer me on and who knows, maybe even wave a banner with my name on it.”

You laughed again and this time, I joined in. I was looking forward to spring already. I was so certain that it’d be great and fun and it’d propel us both into a perfect summer. I had nothing but my respect and admiration for your talent in sports. I had seen you run, so often, so elegantly. Whether you were tearing down the school playground to the gates or leaping over an empty crate like you were hurdling, you made it look like the most natural thing a person could do. Sometimes, I was utterly convinced that your feet didn’t touch the ground, that the wind lifted you and the rest of the world shaped itself and dimmed around you, to better accentuate the graceful arc of your grin.

“I’d love to come along.”

“Then we’ll do that. Oh! And by the way, we’re going to hit the beach this summer. What do you think? My parents can take us, and my mum says that you can come along if you like. We own a beach house.”

“You _own_ —?” I spluttered. “Like a second home?”

“Exactly. Not as fun as it sounds, though. If I leave something there, I have to wait until next year to get it back.” You hopped down a set of stone steps, while I opted to use the ramp adjacent to it. “Hey. Do you want one?”

You pointed, and I followed your finger, filtering through the crowd of students after school, who typically hit this promenade in spring because of the flourishing cherry blossoms and the way it attracted the sunlight to stream in through the cottony layers of pink. “Want what?”

“An ice cream, duh!” you cried. “Everyone’s queuing up to get one. Once it hits spring, we all eat nothing but ice cream. Wait here, okay? I’ll buy you one.”

You tossed your schoolbag into a shrubbery patch that was enclosed by a half wall, and I shifted to lean against it. I watched you push through the queue, heard you shout, “’Scuse me, sorry! I’ve got the right amount of change, I’ll only take a sec—” and I felt every muscle in my body relax with contentment.

I would never have ventured outdoors, were it not for you. I never would have grown out of my resentment, were it not for you. But, you would argue for years to come, the accident would never have happened, were it not for you.

“Hi!” Elenar waved at me when I spotted her passing, accompanied by your eldest sister. They both smiled at me and for the first time, I felt truly welcome in the environment that had typically overlooked me. I stepped forwards to talk to Elenar, _just_ as you tore across the road with two ice creams in your hand, _just_ as a boy powered a bicycle down the long stretch of cobbles and hollered at you to get out of the way.

“Lea!” your sisters screamed, and the bicycle’s front wheel wobbled as he veered out of your way – and into mine. I remember outstretching my hands, not to protect myself, but to reach for you.

The bicycle hit me and either it or its owner smashed four of my left ribs, long before I could comprehend. I was blasted backwards as though what had hit me had been a cannonball, not the flimsy handle of a cheap bicycle that needed to be oiled. But I was light, caught by surprise, too busy searching for you to consider darting out of the way. And I had a bone disease.

 _That’s right_ , I thought to myself as I soared through the air. _I have a bone disease. I shouldn’t be having ice cream on the promenade like everyone else_.

I remembered that the promenade dropped to another level behind me, cutting down the hill with a set of steps that led to a second path parallel to the canal. I wondered if I was going to go so far that I’d land in the water, and I actually smiled when I felt the wind course through my hair and shirt sleeves and the pink clouds of cherry blossom were so close I could nearly touch them. I thought to myself that this incredible sensation of complete freedom, must be what you felt every time you jumped.

“Isa!” You were screaming, racing for the finish line before I could hit it. I landed with a crash and there went my femur with a resounding crack; the bicycle landed on top of me, and there went my tibia as I threw out my right arm to shield my face.

“Isa! Isa! Oh god, Isa…!” You did a long jump down the stairs, hurdled over the bicycle, seized my hand in a bid to stop me from tumbling any further – and there went my wrist. You felt it crumble in your grip and with a shuddering yelp of horror, you let go.

Isn’t it funny how so much of Radiant Garden is a bed of grass and warm earth, I wanted to tell you and of all places to land, I picked the razor edges of concrete, channelling my mother in the same accident that killed her.

I couldn’t talk, though. I was rendered speechless by the pain and with the circle of faces around me so blurry, I didn’t know where you were. I heard voices, but none of them were yours. I felt a hand on my shoulder, right before I passed out, but that wasn’t you either. I decided that you were, like me, saying goodbye to the perfect summer.

 

**____________________________**

**SAÏX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

\- _eleven days after birth_ -

_______________________________

 

When I’m not with you, I spend my time thinking about you instead. It’s a poor substitute, but the Organisation knows that I’ll just hold you back otherwise, the same way I’ve always have.

“Tell me what you mean by that,” the Superior says when I admit this inadequacy.

“…I don’t think I’ll be as good as him. Even with a weapon and my element assigned, I won’t be able to compare.” I lean forwards to watch you, comfortable with my position as spectator. They think they are training you, but you’re just showing off, really. You didn’t learn your grace from them; you had it right from the start. They haven’t seen the shapes you traced in the air from our childhood, how effortless you made it seem, how easily you could convince me into thinking I had done the same.

“What will happen to me, Sir? If I carry on this way, will you arrange for me to be ‘Dusked’?”

It’s something the was only mentioned in passing, but the Superior’s ability extending to decide our fate hardly requires much extrapolation on my part. He mentors me more than Vexen does now, and his control over the Castle is evident. I have seen Dusks slink away from him respectfully and fulfil his wordless orders. Even Xigbar, who never misses a moment to dig at me and play jokes at the expense of others, is dutiful and humble towards the Superior. I wouldn’t put it down as a recognition in fear or of his power, but more an appreciative gesture. It’s almost as if in one way or another, he’s indirectly saved us all.

“You won’t be punished or asked to leave,” the Superior opts to answer my question. “We are far too understaffed to consider that. You are just stubborn in comparison to everyone else. Isa had a life he never wanted to give up, clearly.”

“What does that mean? That the rest of you _did_ give up your lives?”

“In a way.” The Superior turns his back on the training ground and beckons for me to follow him. I give you one last glance, hearing the tremendous whirr of a chakram spinning through fire, and then obey. “We accomplished what we wanted to accomplish, and it seemed the most sensible route to take.”

“To die?”

“In a way,” he says again. “I prefer to call it a submission to something unavoidable. It seems to me that you met your end before you were willing to, which, given your selective amnesia, means that this is knowledge only held by Axel.”

I glance up at him, noting the way his eyes tend to narrow a millimetre or two when he mentions you. “Sir, I don’t think we have much of a choice in when we get to die.”

One corner of his mouth twitches in vague acknowledgment of my naivety. “No, Saïx,” he replies, his voice light and his fingers grazing my upper arm as he coerces me into the Grey Area, “we definitely had a choice.”

His strides lengthen and he walks to the window, and I think he’s going there just to admire the view, but Xigbar portals to appear next to him.

“You rang?” he says flatly. His yellow gaze rests on me like a vulture spotting a carcass. “Does he follow you?” he asks in an undertone, but I hear him anyway. “Or do you command him to?”

The Superior glances out the floor length window. “Actually, he’s here because of you. You’re right. There are a lot of Heartless at the Castle’s base. You may take Saïx with you and try again.”

Xigbar pulls a face, one that’s torn between horror and amusement. He taps one foot, channelling his annoyance into that gesture. “Well Sir…with all due respect, I recalled I asked for a partner, not a hindrance.”

“Saïx is the only one available. The others are preoccupied with Axel and trying to curb his element.”

Xigbar snorts. “You’re doing this to spite me. You know, _you’re_ free at the moment.”

“The sooner Saïx is trained, the sooner he can accompany me to Hollow Bastion.” The Superior brushes Xigbar away from him and approaches me, and I feel a little lost in this strange company. Perhaps if I wasn’t so weak, I would be allowed to stay and train with you.

“You’re not weak.” The Superior interprets my look correctly. It’s a little unnerving, since I don’t recall ever changing expression. “Just conflicted. I find,” he says carefully, ignoring Xigbar as he tries to interrupt, “that it’s a tad easier to cope if you have an anchor of sorts. Something to do, something to keep you occupied, something that will ground you and serve as a reminder that even if it’s underserved, we still have the privilege to do what we like.”

“An anchor?”

“Mm. Just a way to kill time. A purpose, if you like. Think about it.” He gives me a tiny nudge, the tips of his fingers touching the semicircle of my coat chain, and then Xigbar draws up a portal with a scowl.

“Come on then,” he sighs. “Come and watch me get slaughtered.”

“Maybe Xigbar’s right,” I start, but the Superior silences my protests with a single, expressionless look.

“No, he’s not. Go and assist him, Saïx.” He lifts up my hood and gestures to the portal. Then, he returns to the window, summons an ornate white armchair and sinks into it, back turned to me.

**-x-**

“I don’t suppose you have a clue in what’s happening to you, do you?” Xigbar grumbles, when I arrive next to him and seemingly insult him just by being here. “The Superior’s always been a bit insane, but now he’s _really_ outdone himself. Hollow Bastion, my arse. Even _I_ haven’t been sent on a mission to Hollow Bastion, not with him anyway, but he has plans for you. Apparently, there’s more to you than that doe eyed expression of yours.”

“I’m not doe eyed,” I answer hotly, and then ask, a little less passionate, “but I don’t really know how I’m supposed to help you on this mission.”

“Well, I’m stumped too, if that’s any reassurance.” Xigbar spins his arrowguns round his wrists, shrugging. “It’s probably just punishment because I complained about my assigned mission while doing a half-arsed job on it. Still, I can handle things at a long range. It’s when they get close that I require some backup, but since that backup’s you, I might as well go surrender now.”

I roll my eyes, rather cross with the Superior for putting me up to this. It’s easy enough to tell me to ground myself, but _how_ I’m supposed to go about it is something he’s conveniently missed.

Our mission is to tame the population of Neoshadows outside the Castle, and there are quite a fair number of them. I decide that you would have no problem in accomplishing such a mission. Things would be so much easier if I just asked you to do it.

Then, I realise that that’s my life in a nutshell.

“Wake up, Saïx. I need you to do something at least, because I’m not going to rescue you.” Xigbar jabs me with one of his guns. “Why not pick up a crate and throw it at them? That might work.”

“All right.” I push my hood back, hoping it will improve my vision, but the alley is dark and cloaked in fierce rain. The only sources of light are from two neon lights above and each bullet that Xigbar fires.

I don’t remember much of my life, but I know that you played an integral part in its quality and, quite possibly, in its end. I can’t do anything without you. This is why I can’t function. My life support is gone, I’m wavering because of it, it’s so simple that it’s no wonder why I overlooked it. Every atom of conflict can be rooted, can be calmed, if I just remember that my purpose is you. You’re my anchor, what I’m supposed to be going back to.

Slowly, I drop the crate in my hands, just as Xigbar hollers for me to cooperate. Then, I rush forwards to strike the Neoshadows at close range, not even sure of what I’m doing, but something silver tears through them. I do a hairpin turn and strike again, and it’s so easy. I skid through the puddles and cut circles like the air around me is a cloth and I’m a blade.

“Saïx, that’s enough.”

Xigbar calls, perhaps a minute in, perhaps an hour in. When I hear that name being called, I falter and stop in my tracks. I realise that I’m gripping a handle, but when I glance down, my weapon dematerialises before I can see it.

“…How did you do that?” Xigbar asks. He upturns the crate and sits on it to catch his breath. “What were you thinking about?”

“Lea,” I admit, unabashed. “Axel, I mean. He advised that I avoid conflict and take a side. The Superior too, said I need an anchor of sorts—”

“Saïx, let me put a bit of perspective on that.” Xigbar scratches his head, twisting his mouth into a patronising smile. “When I was eleven days old and still trying to get my head round things, I discovered that hunting Heartless was a great way to curb my frustration with who I was. Vexen prefers to indulge himself in the sciences. Zexion reads. Lexaeus and Xaldin do weight lifting. We do these sorts of things to remind us what it was like to be human. They make us remember what we’re working towards. Our anchors were never another person.”

He laughs at the mere thought of it. “It’s pretty dangerous to depend on a person, don’t you think? Not a sensible thing to do. Who knows, maybe that was the mistake you made when you were alive. Put all your eggs in one basket.”

I cross my arms, shivering a little in the cold. “Well, either way, I summoned my weapon, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did, and that’s a step backwards, Seven. You’ve just proven that you’re geared to depend on someone. The Superior obviously knew that – hey, maybe it’s the fact that you gawk after Axel all the time that got you rumbled? You’re in a bit of a fix now, eh? The Superior’s not going to settle for Axel taking complete command of you, is he? If you’re going to chuck your eggs in a basket, it’ll be his, surely.”

“Are you finished?” I opt to answer. “You’re completely wrong, by the way, on all counts.”

“You’re like…” Xigbar snaps his fingers a few times, grasping for the right words. “You’re like a bone of contention. Their point of argument. Axel and the Superior are dogs and they’re fighting over a bone: you.”

**-x-**

“Biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“Do you think?”

We stay up together, watching the perpetual night above our heads. You rest your hands on the wall, your arms forming a perfect V round my sitting form. If you push forwards, I’ll topple over this balcony and go down and down and finally crash and in all likelihood, meet the hungry mouths of Neoshadows.

“Yeah, I think,” you say to me firmly, and I realise that I have been worrying about nothing. “You would be a bone of contention between us, if I haven’t already won. You’ve picked your side, haven’t you?”

“Mm,” I murmur. I’m not too sure, really. Saïx feels more natural and the Superior is kind; it hurts to be Isa, like squeezing into shrunken clothes, but keeping Isa means I get to keep you. The pain is worth it.

“The Organisation just wants to use us.”

“I know,” I admit. “Xigbar even said the Superior has plans for me.”

“Nothing dodgy about that,” you remark, and I feel your eyebrows lift in a cynical gesture, before you claim my lips again in a swift move of experience and fluidity. You tug the zip of my coat. “You wouldn’t understand, because you’ve never been in my position, but I can see why people would fight over you.”

“ _That’s_ bullshit,” I say into your rain soaked hair. I pull off my glove to better appreciate you. Your hair is spikier, coarser, more familiar than mine. The markings under your eyes are still a mystery, but I find them irresistible to taste, half convinced that they’ll mark me too. You work your way south, left fingers closed around my zip, right fingers tracing a line of rain down my skin.

“It’s not bullshit. I’m nothing without you, Isa.”

“I know,” I reply, “and I’m nothing without you.”

“Lea,” you prompt.

“Lea,” I repeat, and you murmur your approval.

I reflect on my conversation with Xigbar, about the mistakes that led me here. So what that I put all my eggs in one basket? Maybe it was the only one around. Maybe no one else cared about me. If I was drowning, and someone extended a hand, I wouldn’t be such an idiot to ignore it.

“What are you thinking about?” You unbutton my trousers and slip in a hand, trailing kisses down the side of my neck.

“Xigbar,” I answer truthfully. You pull back, and I snort at the revulsion etched into your face. “The things he said,” I clarify. “And you’re right. It’s not worth worrying about.”

“Exactly.” You wrap your long fingers around my length and pump slowly. I grip the cold, wet surface of the wall, try and shake back my sodden hair.

“Falling off this wall might be something to worry about, though,” I admit, biting down on a moan as you pick up the speed a little, from lazy to only a tad languid.

“Better keep still then.” You smirk against the crook of my neck, running long, torturously slow strokes from base to head. I look up to steady my breaths, to accommodate your warm kisses up and down my throat. I place my hand on yours, encouraging you to stroke me as fast as I’m panting. My hips jerk and angle themselves involuntarily. My head spins and I feel my stomach turn at the thought of the drop behind me, but I know that if I let my hands fly to your shoulders, you will just shake yourself loose.

I can only hold onto the thin wall for dear life as you jerk me off. “Can’t you go faster?” I ask you between gasps. You shrug, and then bend a little to fit me in the warmth of your mouth. I groan, one hand slips off the wall and I wobble precariously, too distracted by the lead up to orgasm to realise that I might be tumbling.

But I have, courtesy to you, never been able to tell the difference between flying and falling.

There’s a flash of lightning in the stormy clouds that gets reflected somewhere behind my eyelids when I come. I’m still clinging onto the wall, battling my breaths to resemble something steady, my left leg wrapped round the back of your knee, my mind in a bit of a daze.

We exchange a few lazy kisses. “All right?” you ask, and you let me trace lines down your face, wiping the rain away, and in the instant you smile, I forget about the drop behind.

“Yeah, fine.”

And I realise – but more so remember – the more someone loves you, the more capable they are of hurting you. Forgetting this could have been my mistake.


	6. Lea / Axel: Physician, Heal Thyself

**_________________________________**

**LEA, THE BOY WHO'D DISAPPEAR**

\- _eleven years before death_ -

_____________________________________

 

While you were fixed up by a team of medical professionals, I sat in the waiting room and read up on the various diseases people could possibly die from. There were leaflets everywhere – too colourful, given their content – that explained the basics of pancreatic cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, how to spot them, who to contact, how it affected your life. There weren't any leaflets that explained what to do when you were affected by a disease you didn't actually have.

The door opened and your aunt and my dad exited. They were both worn from the stress of discussion. I stood up, immune to your aunt's nasty look at me. "…Daddy?"

"Sit down, Lea." I did, and he picked the seat next to me. It was the closest we had ever been to one another, but I knew he was just doing it to avoid my gaze. "Isa broke his femur, four of his ribs, and his right arm's completely shattered. He's going to be in a wheelchair for a year and face months of rehab afterwards. His family have to fork out money to pay for a carer inside and outside of school."

"Well, we're rich, we can pay for—"

"We've insulted them enough," my dad cut in. "I think you need to consider things from someone's perspective but yours. This is the second time Isa's been hurt at school and the second time you have been involved. You're not suited to be his friend, Lea. He's a nice boy, but the last thing he needs is someone to show him how he _can't_ live his life. I've told his aunt you're going to leave him alone from now on."

I knew that was coming, but that didn't make me any more prepared for it. My stomach knotted up, a wild complement to my bubbling rage and guilt. "That's rubbish, Dad," I shot back. "You can't just say that without asking me first."

"Consider your disregard of me to be mutual," he answered. "We're running out of excuses for you, Lea. You're out of control, and Isa is the one taking the hits."

"He needs me," I murmured.

"Really. Do you think this is what he needs?" He gestured to the waiting room, bringing my attention to the sharp smell of the hospital. "You need him more than he needs you. That's why I'm telling you to consider another perspective. From everyone else's point of view, you're being incredibly selfish and immature."

I bit down on my lip. There wasn't much point in arguing with him. He was a prosecution lawyer, trained to drive routes that spanned a full circle to the same conclusion: I was guilty. Of course everyone saw me as selfish. They thought I was forcing you go out and have fun and be normal, as though these were things you would never wish for.

"…Can I visit him?"

"Be quick."

I slid open the door to your hospital room. You were pretty drugged up and though I didn't expect much from you, I did half hope you'd say hello at least.

Yet you didn't move a muscle. You just sat in your wheelchair with your head turned at a slight angle towards the wall, sporting quite a collection of casts, bandages and bruises.

"Hey." I sat on the edge of your bed, but you appeared in a bit of a daze, still staring into space, tears rolling down your cheeks. "I just got grilled by my dad, no surprises there. He's really cross with me. I think everyone is. But listen…" I leaned forwards a little. "I'm sorry you got hurt. It was my fault and I'm sorry. I bet it scared you. Scared me too, you know. This…this wheelchair's quite cool though, huh?" I patted its worn arm, treating it like an old friend. "Is it one you push yourself or is it electric?"

You said nothing. "…You know, you can still turn up to the athletics tryouts," I said, trying to guess what was upsetting you. "There's plenty of space in the stands to fit a wheelchair. O-or maybe it's the beach you're worried about?"

You continued to stare seemingly through the wall, not bothering to wipe your eyes or under your nose. "Because we can always go next summer. It's not like the beach house is going to pack its bags and leave."

Still, nothing. I studied your shattered arm, bruised fingers, awkwardly positioned leg, the way your breaths came out rattled and laboured. You stank of bitter medicine and something like disinfectant. Could it really be so simple…?

"Does it hurt?" I whispered.

You finally looked up at me, and your lower lip trembled in betrayal to the bravery you had kept up for so long. You nodded a little, then a bit more, then so fiercely that you burst into tears.

"Come here," I said, though I came to you. Your good hand scrabbled for the material of my top, gripping so tight that my collar dug into the back of my neck. I hugged you as best as I could, tried to make the confines of a wheelchair a little less lonely, tried to ease the shock and trauma and injuries that ran deeper than flesh and bone, that no one else seemed to be able to see.

**-x-**

For the week you were kept at hospital before receiving the all clear to go home, my dad ensured I stayed away from you. He thought by holding Bunnymoon's food supply ransom, I'd relented and given up on you. He soon realised the actual reason, though, was that I had used that time to devise a plan that would satisfy everyone. Such a thing – where both defence and prosecution were happy with the outcome – didn't exist in court, but maybe in the real world, it did.

"Lacey and I got a good look at the jerk on that bike," Elenar said to me on the sixth night without you. She had mistaken my planning as a gesture stemmed from guilt. "We know what class he's in. He's to blame for going on a bike when it was a no bike zone. Some people are saying that."

"And everyone else?" I prompted her. "They better not be blaming Isa for having OI. It's not his fault."

"Most people blame you." She folded her arms, cocked her head to the side, her bright blonde hair as stark and glaring as the truth. "Even Isa."

**-x-**

I refused to believe my sister.

I refused to even think for a moment, that it was possible for you to hate me.

I had come up with a great plan that would make everyone happy. Every party had come to agree – my dad, me, your aunt, the school, your doctor. Somehow, I managed to plead my case and end up with a milder sentence. I liaised with everyone so that instead of playing the blame game, we sought for a solution.

The only one I needed to convince now was you. You weren't allowed to hate me, not when I had come this far.

Admittedly, I felt weird for buying you flowers, but figured I'd feel even weirder if I didn't. I bought a massive bunch which, according to the florist, symbolised friendship and was conveniently the most expensive bouquet at the stand. I didn't care about being ripped off, though; I just wanted to make you feel better.

To my dismay, you only gave the flowers a surly look as I placed them in your lap, and you transferred that same look to my face. "…Are they supposed to cheer me up?"

"Well, yeah," I admitted. "It works when my dad does it to my mum. What _will_ cheer you up then?" I asked, on seeing your stony gaze.

"A normal, healthy body would be nice." You shifted to look out the window, propping up your chin with your good hand. I could tell by your reflection that your grumpiness ran in tandem with hurt.

"So…how are you feeling?"

"Fine," you answered swiftly, automatically, as if I was just a nameless nurse doing the mundane task of checking up on you. "My aunt said you had agreed to stay away from me."

"My dad was kindly speaking on my behalf," I replied. "He's a lawyer. He makes it his business to speak on behalf of everyone. I'm actually going to stick around. Unless you want me to stay away, of course."

Your face, if possible, grew even darker. I had never seen you so formidable. But the look went as fast as it came. You snaked your arm round the flowers and gave a one-shouldered shrug. "…Well, it's up to you, I guess," you mumbled. "You ought to listen to your dad, though."

"So you want me to stay away then."

"No, I want you to stay out of trouble with your dad."

"Which means staying away from you." I didn't realise I had raised my voice a little, until your eyes flashed and you scowled.

"For goodness sake, Lea, don't rub it in." You couldn't slam your hand down on the armrest – as much as I could tell you wanted to – so you screwed up your face instead, as if the very sight of me made you retch. "Of course I want you to stay. I want to hang out with you and go round your house every day after school and play with the rabbit and go to the beach and do everything you say I can do, but I can't do that any more."

"Because I end up hurting you?" I guessed, and I felt my throat block up with the various truths of our friendship I didn't want to admit.

"It's not that," you muttered. "Your dad's right, Lea. We're not suited to be friends. We don't match."

I found myself slipping back in time to remember reading a science experiment about metals in water. I remembered one reaction so violent, the glass bowl shattered as soon as the metal broke the surface. Was that you and me?

I bunched my trembling hands into fists and stomped over, standing right in front of you. "Says who?" I demanded. "No one can decide what you can and can't do or have, not even my dad—"

"I know," you cut in coldly, "and not even you."

I would have been lying if I didn't say your words stung me. I hated the fact you hated me; and I hated the fact you had every right to be that way.

"Isa," I began, pretending to be unaffected. I was surprisingly convincing. "I got you this too." I passed you the latest copy of your favourite astrology magazine. "To read in your own time. And also, I have some news. It's great, it really is." I grinned so much it hurt. "Your aunt's agreed to let me be your carer while you're in school."

You stared up at me with the surprise and shock I knew you'd display. You stopped fiddling with the ribbon round the bouquet; you may have even stopped breathing.

"Isn't it great? My dad actually let me. It's a brilliant plan. I'm going to take you to and from your lessons at school. Because I'm the one looking after you, your aunt doesn't need to pay for a school carer, so she saves money. At the same time, I get to stretch myself by being put in a class two years up, so I'll pay attention and who knows, maybe even stay awake. And obviously, since I'll be taking you to every lesson, it means I'll improve my attendance rate and Dad won't be so cross with me. Plus your doctor said it'd be nice for you to have a friend look after you. Isn't it great?" I said again. I couldn't think of a more perfect plan. Everyone benefited and most importantly, I could remain a part of your life.

I waited for you to exclaim and agree it was the best idea ever, but you never did. In fact, your face went a tremendous shade of scarlet and your eyes flashed, livid. "I…I don't want you as a carer…!" you spluttered. The words would hardly leave your mouth.

"Well why not?"

"Because…!" you spat, and now your fingers shook with either anger or impatience. "It's…I don't know, embarrassing!"

"Embarrassing? Why?"

"It just is! Everything about it is. I'm stuck in a wheelchair. I can't do anything for myself and it's demeaning and I don't need you to highlight that when everyone else does it so well." You took a deep breath, and I had the feeling you could only rant like this when I was on the receiving end. "I don't like to look so weak and _disabled_ around you, and I won't have you feeling sorry for me. We're a mismatch. Get over it."

Your argument was that every second I touched the handles of your wheelchair, I would be reminded you had a bone disease and were weaker than me. You found it degrading and humiliating but in all honesty, I had complete conviction that no one had as much of a problem with osteogenesis imperfecta, than yourself.

I waited for you to meet my gaze, because I had something to make very clear. "You're stupid, Isa."

Tears pricked the corner of your eyes, and you flushed again. "Thank you," you spat bitterly, and your voice shook with fury. "Another label, just what I need."

"You're stupid because you think sitting in that wheelchair and doing nothing will keep you safe. It won't. You're going to get hurt, no matter what you do. You can sit there and sulk in the corner as much as you like; that doesn't mean a ceiling panel won't fall on you and crack your skull. You have OI, okay? You can't get rid of it, but you _can_ decide what to do with it. If you're going to break bones, you might as well have fun doing it." I rapped my knuckles on your armrest, and you jumped a little at the noise. "And this wheelchair, by the way? It was invented to enable you to do things, not to trap you."

You looked torn trying to decide if you felt like screaming or scoffing. Your mouth twitched and you kept gritting your teeth, but you never once looked away.

"You've got two constants to your life, Isa. One, you're always going to break your bones. You might as well get used to it. The other constant is me," I finished. "I'll see you on Monday at the school gates."

I grabbed my bag, slung it over my shoulder and grunted at the impact.

"You're going?" you asked, because that surely insulted you more than anything I had said. "Why?"

"Because someone has to feed the rabbit," I answered, not bothering to look back. I wondered if my dad felt this ghastly cluster of guilt every time he grilled someone in court. I wondered how he could say the things no one wanted to hear, and not want to run back in afterwards and double check the damage.

I left you. I slid the door shut just in time, so that you didn't see me cry. No one saw me cry, for I just grinned and grinned until my eyes gave up trying to expose the hurtful truth – that your admission of calling us a mismatch was more than enough to make me feel I had broken every bone in _my_ body.

 

**_______________________________________**

**AXEL, THE FLURRY OF DANCING FLAMES**

\- _fifteen days after birth_ -

___________________________________________

 

I grew up playing tug-of-war with me on one side; and on the other, my parents, your guardians, admirers and of course, the cruel grip of your disease. I fought to keep you, dragged you back to my side time and time again until you choked to death on that rope of selfish want.

A few days ago, you came to me with a hesitant suggestion that you were a bone of contention. You seemed surprised you could be the source of conflict, the point of argument. You never were able to comprehend your worth.

You told me the Superior had plans for you, and when I listened to the faint echo of pride in your voice, the matted knot of my insides in all likelihood just exploded. My blood crunched up into cracked ice, and in the split second you missed by blinking slow and serene, I wanted to punch your fucking face in.

**-x-**

I hate being away from you.

I get sent on endless missions to cull the Heartless population; in the meantime, you stay back at the base and keep the Superior company. I only really get to see you at the beginning and the end of the day.

It's not enough. I can't stand it.

"Hey, Lexaeus?" I address Number Five, who only talks at mission end, because I need to get to the bottom of this. "How come I get paired up with everyone on missions except the Superior and Saix?"

"The Superior doesn't see to missions personally; and since you recently proved incapable of controlling your element, it is hazardous to have Saix partnered with you."

I scoff, although I know Lexaeus is far from whom I should be directing my contempt at. "That's the only reason is it?"

"As far as I know," he replies mildly. We return to the Castle through a portal, and then Lexaeus walks off without saying goodbye (or well done, considering the fact I eliminated far more Heartless than him). I wander to the lobby and look for you, but I catch the wrong eye instead.

"Looking for me?" Xigbar pushes himself off the wall with a foot and sneers. "Course you weren't. He's with the Superior. They've been together all day, as a matter of fact. You don't like that?" He spots my contorted face. "You think he's taking Number Seven away from you?"

"Isn't he?"

"Personally, I can't see what the fuss is about," Xigbar replies idly, "but I'd imagine the Superior does have a bit of interest in Seven, enough to keep him close at hand and away from what's dangerous. Or _who_ 's dangerous," he adds with an empty smile. "Hey, you want some free advice? You're better off letting the Superior do what he likes. He doesn't have much tolerance for people who step out of line. But if you want to challenge him, I won't stop you. Who knows, it might be quite fun – for the spectators at least."

At some point, I have bunched my hands into fists so tight, the leather of my gloves creaks in protest. I know Xigbar is just stirring things – he seems to think everything is a game – but at the same time, I can't hold back the bubbles beneath the surface of my skin. I don't know what will happen if I open my mouth. I might roar and holler until my throat is torn apart; I might be sick.

"If he tries anything, I swear I'll…I'll fucking—" There's a tap on my shoulder, and I turn to see you, and you're still here, and looking at me the way you always do, and…

and…

"Hey," you say lightly, with a half smile that seems to dim everything else. You hold a first aid kit in your arms and fucking hell, you're Isa through and through. "Good mission?"

…and what was I angry about again?

**-x-**

It's odd how we feel safer in the empty length of the corridor over the lobby. You relax against a pillar, apparently waiting for something. Your fingers curl and uncurl over the silver handle of the first aid box, and then you simply say, and your voice echoes off the marbled walls, "Can I?"

I realise the prickling sensation on my face is from the presence of blood. "You don't have to bother. I'll just wind up getting more cuts tomorrow."

"Still." You put a damp cloth to the top left of my forehead. "This is as close as I come to Organisation missions." Your eyes narrow a little with concentration, and even after looking at you for so long, I'm still unused to the clarity of your irises. They're not bleeding into the sclera of your eyes, they're no longer foggy and lost. "I haven't shadowed a mission since that one with you."

"Well, killing Heartless gets a bit bland after a while," I lie. "I don't even understand what purpose it's meant to serve."

"No, I don't understand either," you agree. "We're not in a position to be demanding answers, though. Bottom of the rung and that."

I discover I don't mind the ambiguity of my situation, so long as what _does_ remain clear is your involvement. I can take out Heartless and watch them explode into wispy tendrils of smoke for no reason whatsoever except for it being the Superior's orders. I can wear this uniform, answer to Axel and constantly have fire simmering in the pit of my stomach – all this I can bear, provided you're still around.

"What do you do with the Superior?" I'm almost afraid of asking. The question itself is an acknowledgement that there's a chance of you slipping away. (Why are you with anyone who isn't me?)

"Not much, if I have to be honest. A lot of the time, I sit around while he works and wonders what to do with me. Sometimes we go to the library, but he never says anything unless I ask. And when he _does_ talk, he often avoids answering whatever questions I have for him. Rather like you," you add.

"Oy." I jerk my head back and the warm tips of your fingers stroke the stuffy air instead. "I'm not like that at all."

"Is that right?" you reply. Your eyes dart up in thought – they always do that, because you like to draw pictures in the sky that is your canvas – and then you give the coy but satisfied smile I will never tire of. "Then tell me how I died."

"That's the one thing I can't answer."

The corners of your mouth tug a little more. "Tell me how _you_ died."

"And that," I amend, and you find a sliver of humour in my sheepish grin. I haven't met anyone so gracious in accepting his lack of knowledge, but you somehow pull of the lowly state and twist it into an almost-desirable position. You accept the fact people know things you don't, have things you don't, can do all the things you can't. From day one, it's been drilled into your head that you are a defect, an imperfection; and the act of pursuit – of all the things you truly deserve – is something beyond your capabilities.

You were built to rely on someone, to be happily led around with a blindfold over your already-trusting eyes. All I did, some years ago on a sports field, was jump in before someone else really took advantage of you.

As such, it's cruel how you refrain from pressing me for answers, but your situation could have been a lot worse without me.

"Do you talk to the Superior like this?" I say after a minute.

"Like what?"

 _With half-lidded eyes, gentle strokes to his face and the ducked head of submission_ , I think, but I just shrug and rephrase the question instead. "Do you like him?"

You pack away the first aid kit, and your thumb grazes where my cut is, admiring your handiwork. "I don't know. He's kind and patient. I like the Castle," you admit. "It's quiet and reassuring, and I'd rather not be anywhere else."

That the Castle is a product of the Superior and his immeasurable command doesn't quite leave my mind. "So we're staying," I confirm.

"Yes," you say carefully, and both your voice and gaze suddenly drop. "But on _our_ agenda. Isn't that what you said?"

You tilt your head, and the curtain of long blue hair slithers over my waiting hand. A rush of triumph courses through me when you repeat the words I once fed to you. We're in this together, and we're going to be all right.

And yet.

And yet, my thoughts continue to linger on the Superior, and it I feel them mutate into an unhealthy obsession with challenge. The way I see it – and I might not necessarily be right – is that he's playing a bit of a game with me. He commands you to follow him around, to do nothing and say nothing, and you actually do it. He doesn't even need to lift a finger to keep you at his side. He has a lazy grip that bites the circumference of your head, while I struggle to stay hanging on the newness of your sleeve.

I might not necessarily be right.

I might just be making a…what was the phrase again?

The thing is, I have spent too much time and effort, given too much of myself and been with you too long, to lose you now.

"Are you okay?" you ask.

"Yeah, fine." I push my lips to the side of your head, and it's a claim, not a habit, and for that I'm sorry. I feel for your waist and you grunt at the strength of my hold. I shove you backwards and up into the pillar, so that your feet barely scrape the floor and your mouth opens in a gasp.

Through the force of a rough kiss, the cold metal of the first aid kit clangs between our bodies and I absently note that it's beautiful. _You're_ beautiful, to think that a tiny box will nurse and cure me of every injury I could possibly conceive; and the thought that you might need it more than I do, never actually crosses your mind.


	7. Isa / Saix: Beautiful Things

**_______________________________**

**ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _eleven years before death_ -

__________________________________

 

I was aching all over and in constant agony, but when I rolled up to the school gates in my clunky wheelchair, your waving me over was the best pain relief I had ever experienced.

"Here, Miss," you said to my aunt, "I'll take it from here."

I didn't faze you at all. No matter how much intensity I put into my glare – because at this point, I hated you so much – and no matter difficult the wheelchair was to steer, you simply didn't care. The nonchalance with which you always carried yourself made you oblivious to the crowd of staring school kids and my displeasure. You headed for the indoor ramp that looped round the building to the first floor. It was horribly quiet inside. In the still hall of this hairpin ramp, we both realised how shallow and disgustingly throaty my breathing was. You stopped at the corner, hit the wheel lock and walked round to face me.

"I did some reading over the weekend," you said. "I went to the library and took out some books on wheelchairs and broken bones. I know that it hurts to talk when your ribs are done in, and I know you're going to get cranky and restless. But look at me, Isa." You bent to my height so that I had no choice. "I'm not just your carer, I'm your friend too. And I'm going to look after you, no matter how cranky you get."

I resented your tenacity and how it could render my anger powerless. I wanted to scream at you to go away and leave me alone, but through the glass confines of my wheelchair, I had relented a long time ago.

I wouldn't fight you, even if I could.

**-x-**

You joined me for every lesson at school. We sat together, shared textbooks and copied one other's answers. I discovered that you were ambidextrous, preferred to write while balancing your chair forwards on two legs and could twirl a pencil round your fingers. At breaks and lunchtimes, you wheeled me over to the nurse's office so that I could use the bathroom without your company; and when the school bell rang to signal the end of the day, you whisked me back home and nattered about our lessons and classmates.

I still don't know how you did it, really. I had reached a point where I couldn't picture myself without you. Even in the dark confines of my room, when transferred from chair to bed, I thought I could feel you next to me. Soon, you developed a talent to relay my thoughts with frightening accuracy. As you moved me from place to place, you shouted in my defence when people held up by us tutted. You did everything on my behalf and because you did – and because you were so good at it – the wheelchair became my sanctuary and the perfect reason to bind you to my side.

You simply became an extension of me.

**-x-**

You pored over the dessert menu with your tongue between your teeth. "I fancy something hot," you decided. "What do you think? Raspberry sponge or apple crumble? I've tried everything else."

You counted out your father's change and your breath escaped in smoky wisps. We had only managed to get an outside table and though there was a heater beneath the translucent awning, we were still shivering.

"I'm sorry about this," I said, when your chattering teeth became impossible to ignore. I patted the arm of my wheelchair. It was hard work pushing me around, and all the warmer cafes with cushy indoor seats were higher up the Garden.

"Forget it," you said warningly, "this place is fine." You waved for the waitress' attention. "I'll have an apple crumble please."

"Coming right up," she replied. "And what about your friend?"

I flushed, trapped in the chair and boiling in the hurtful stigma.

You turned to the waitress, picking up on the annoyance that had left me speechless. "I don't know what he wants," you answered truthfully. "You could try asking him."

She stammered out an apology and gave me a simpering smile. "Oh honey, I'm so sorry, I just assumed—"

"—that because I'm disabled, I can't do anything," I finished for her. "Don't worry, everyone does it."

It was a testament to how far I had come, really. I myself had grown up on that very assumption; and now, it was the silliest thing I had ever heard.

**-x-**

Sasha Barnett was the most popular girl in my class. She was second tallest in the year, and had a set of teeth so slightly bucked that whenever she smiled, it was inexplicably cute. In October, she handed round invites to her birthday party and to my surprise, she ducked down by my wheelchair with an invitation in her hand.

"Here. It's this Friday." She offered her unusual smile, which I was not accustomed to seeing in such proximity. "It's a disco, but I thought you'd like to come along anyway. See you there?"

I had never received a party invite before. I wasn't sure how to react except stutter my thanks. You, however, leaned forward in your seat hopefully.

"Um…is Lea…?" I tried to ask Sasha without sounding spoilt. "It's just that—"

"Oh, it's addressed to both of you!" she clarified, and she snatched the blue envelope and turned it round. " _To Isa and Lea_ – see? You know, since you come as a pair."

She grinned and carried on handing round invitations, her curly hair bouncing off her shoulders. You took the envelope and tore it open for me. "So…do you feel like going?"

I fidgeted, uncertain how much fun a wheelchair kid could have at a disco.

"Oh, loads," you said loudly, when I muttered this concern. "There's _always_ a food table at discos. I can push you along it and you can try and pick up as many cheese platters as possible."

I snorted, feeling a little horrified afterwards at how strange my laugh sounded.

"Or you could raid the dance floor," you suggested next. "You can point out the bad dancers, and we can run over their toes with this mean wheelchair."

I liked that word – _we_.

I never spoke to Sasha Barnett again after the party; her family moved to the other end of town in a move that surprised and upset everyone. Her words lasted, though. It was her idea first – that we came as a pair.

**-x-**

One day in summer, you decided to make use of the deserted school grounds and practise for the five athletic teams you were picked for. ("Only five out of eight," you had complained. "I wanted to do them all but apparently, it's not fair on everyone else." You didn't seem to understand the concept of place hogging.)

You positioned me a couple of metres from the track, did up your trainers and from your bag, took out a worn sports encyclopaedia. You flicked to a bookmarked page and set it carefully in my lap. "That's how I'm meant to look when I hurdle. You see how the lead leg is meant to be near straight, and how it snaps down after so I don't waste time in the jump. The trail leg – that's the funny leg that follows – should be as close as possible to the hurdle."

I was quite unwilling and shy at first, but you were determined to get me involved in something as uninviting as sports. Our afternoons ranged from me comparing you to your encyclopaedia to taking times with your stopwatch. I felt quite free, watching you run, despite never moving from my chair. I fully appreciated the lengths you went to make me still feel I was standing in this world, but that afternoon with the hurdles, a frown crossed your face.

"You're bored," you interpreted randomly.

"What? I'm not bored," I said. I had only gone for a little snooze in the warm rays of dying sunlight.

"It's a bit boring, huh," you insisted. You stuck your face in your towel, viciously wiping your sweat away. When you threw the soiled item aside, I expected you to berate me for not showing enough gratitude to your efforts. But you smiled a conniving smirk I had never seen before. "Are you jealous, Isa?" you said. "Do you want to run?"

Without waiting for an answer, you wheeled me round and began to push me off the school field. Twice I asked you where you were taking me and once I demanded you stop, but my voice just fell on deaf ears. You eventually brought me to the school's main block.

"…Do you want to go home?" I guessed. You shook your head.

"You know, from here, it's a straight line. I usually run this length when the relay team have stolen the track. It's about two hundred metres, and it goes from this side of the block, over the ramp next to the gym, then the sports shed and then it hits the field."

"What about it?"

You gripped the handles of the wheelchair. "I'm going to make you run down it."

I had underestimated your strength. Of course, I was aware of your tendency to trample over everything that stood in your way – either by a smile or a half-hearted shrug – but it had never struck me until now, the level of your ability in keeping us going.

You were my driving force, who required little input on my behalf to function.

You seemed to know – and were exceptionally talented in providing – everything I wanted. I wanted to run, to have my forehead coated in sweat and my limbs shaking in a perfect cross of fear and power.

When you pushed me down that clear path, taking delight in my panicked screams as the school and the grass and the tarmac rolled by, completely out of my control, that was the first time you left me breathless.

**-x-**

Re-learning how to walk was such a gruelling and humiliating experience that it still makes me redden at the very thought. After weeks of in-seat physiotherapy, my doctors began to rebuild my leg strength enough for me to be able to stand. From there, I took my first step, clinging onto padded bars and panting with effort. The doctors and you – when my therapy didn't conflict with your sports schedule – stood on the sidelines and encouraged me. You all called out reassuring, positive phrases, but I still felt like a labouring woman or a greyhound being pushed beyond its limits.

"You can do it, Isa. Very good, well done. Keep going. Take a deep breath and focus."

On some days, I cried – simply because I was too tired to do anything else. On other occasions, I smiled at my progress and begged my doctors to let you try out the treadmill too. And on rarer, darker days, I screamed and screamed until I lost my voice, until your face went white with fear at what you were seeing.

"One more step, Isa. You can do it."

"I can't!"

"Yes you can. One more step and you've reached the end of the bar."

"Please," I begged, "I can't. I can't do it."

"Yeah you can." You pushed past the doctor, positioned yourself at the finish line with open arms. "Come on, Isa, I know you can do it."

"I can't, how many times do I—I can't do it." I collapsed, and I moaned so pathetically when my legs gave way like a tower of playing cards and a stray breath. "I'd rather be dead than walk another step."

"You don't mean that." You recovered from your flinch at remarkable speed. "You did really well. Maybe we'll call it a day, and I'll take you home."

I nodded, aware that my crumpled form on the sponge walkway was hardly a position I wanted to remain in. "Take me back home, I want to sleep. I'm so fed up of being weak."

You approached, nervous and careful, taking my hands and waiting for me to shuffle my feet. "What are you on about. You're the strongest person I know."

  

**_______________________________**

**SAÏX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

\- _twenty days after birth_ -

__________________________________

 

No one really talks to me, but I know that at every moment of each day, someone somewhere is disappointed with me.

On most occasions, I think it's you.

**-x-**

Days roll past. They bleed into one another like stained sand in an hourglass. Things change and move on and develop. There's routines and reasons and reports, but you go on ahead in an acrid cloak of fire.

I remain safe behind the start line, shoved into the spectator's seat.

(I can't run unless you're pushing me.)

"Those are nice." Xigbar pushes himself up off the sofa and he takes three easy steps to you. They've always been there, but he gestures to the tattoos under your eyes as though they've just materialised. "I'd get a nifty set like that too, but I don't quite meet the criteria."

You offer a half-grin, rolling your eyes and resuming your work of wiping grime off your chakrams. "I don't think anyone knows what you're on about, Xig."

"Yet you act as if you do."

Few of us pay attention to Xigbar's smirk. Zexion stops trawling through reports to give a brief, impassive glance; Xaldin looks away from the window with a raised eyebrow. No one looks particularly bothered, because Xigbar is just being Xigbar – but you take the bait and jump to your feet with a low snarl.

"Do you have a problem with them?"

"Me personally? Not at all." Xigbar waves his arms, bathing in his chivalry. His gaze wanders over to me. "How about you though, Saïx? What do make of them?" He scratches his head in thought, although nothing has ever looked so planned. "You remember him getting them done, right?"

I don't. You would have been too young for tattoos while we were in Radiant Garden. The memory of ink bleeding into your skin must be in the foggy years I can't decipher and understand.

"I had them done in Traverse Town," you confirm. You sidestep Xigbar and reach for me. "I was drunk and stupid."

"Interesting choice of design," remarks Xigbar, so light it even stings me.

"I presume you are referring to insinuations of gang culture," Zexion contributes. He doesn't look up from his pile of reports. "Traverse Town may be the leading world for travellers, but I don't doubt it has its own horde of tribal organisational structures. Tattoos are merely a pretentious way to make one appear to have a semblance of depth and meaning, yet in particular cultures, they promote the usage of tattoos as the signposts and achievements of life. A teardrop tattooed under your eye means you've killed someone. Two teardrops – that means you regret it."

You scoff. The chakrams whirr and dematerialise, and your hands now scrabble for my shoulders. "One might argue you're reading into things a little too much," you reply loftily.

"Or you're just glossing over everything," Xigbar says. You give a derisive snort and say nothing else. Your grip on me tightens, and then you steer – borderline push – me out of the Grey Area, barking that we're going for a walk in the city.

"What was that about?" I ask.

"Hell if I know. They're just making shit up because they're bored." You nod with determination, but the way your fingers dig into my shoulder suggest you're not completely convinced. I wince at the steady ache, and I know this tingling feeling as you stand beside me, seething and bristling. I used to know what came next, but again, crucial knowledge about you slips out of reach.

You walk faster. I struggle to keep up. "You know, they can say what they like. You're not so fucking stupid that you'd actually fall for it, that you'd listen to them over me."

I wriggle as best as I can out of your painful grip. "I like the tattoos," I comment, and I lift a hand to trace one of the markings and feel your sharp cheekbone. Without warning, you whack my offending hand aside and spit at me, "Stop that, you never even fucking noticed them until someone pointed them out. Do people have to do everything for you, tell you what to say and what to do? Why are you always so weak?"

"I don't know what you mean—"

I remember what comes next now. I stiffen, hold my breath and brace myself. To my surprise, however, you slam a hand against the wall, channelling all your fury into that, and then hold me flush against you, and you're as safe as ever.

"This is exactly what they want," you mutter into my ear (although I know you are talking to yourself). "They want me riled up, to mistrust you enough to compel you to switch sides."

"They'll have to try harder than that." I reach for your tattoos again, careful to quash any hesitance I might have. I push my thumbs to the purple blemishes and smoothen your cheeks in a pretend attempt to wipe them away.

"A gang? Really?" I cradle your face.

"What do you think?" you respond. I think about kissing you (somewhere deep in me, I know that's the perfect answer for everything) but you duck to press your lips to my inner wrist.

I let my mind linger on blurred, treasured memories of blind faith (me) and innocent overconfidence (you – always you).

"…Well, the Isa and Lea I remember, they don't seem the type to fall into something like that. A mouthy and skinny athlete, and a nerdy astrologer with a bone disease."

You fold your arms behind your head and say, "Exactly," and there is just enough conviction in your voice to cause me to forget why it ever mattered.

**-x-**

You're such a show off. You behave as if the world's centre stage was built especially for you, as though your role in life is to bleach your surroundings of beauty and worth and drag it into yourself.

I should be frustrated (because what can pale, deathly blue do against a backdrop of scorching, insurmountable scarlet?) but I like your obnoxious nonchalance. It makes you and me a perfect match.

In the murky depths of the city, you uncurl your firsts to create fire, and before Neoshadows can melt into the concrete and flee, you burn them from their ankles up. You boast rotating columns and whirring pinwheels of destructive flames. It rains down hard on us, but you barely acknowledge it and once again, the world bends to accommodate your performance.

"It's only a matter of time until I learn to summon corridors the way they do." You snap up a fist and the fire coughs out its last breath. The ends of your hair begin to succumb to the pouring rain. "I've already mastered fire. Once I learn how to open corridors, you and me – we're going to escape."

You grin, and suddenly aware of how the tattoos mar your face, for that split-second I don't recognise you at all.

**-x-**

I have tried to make myself accept I will always be in your shadow, but dissatisfaction niggles at the back of my mind, eating away at sanity like crumbling ash. It doesn't help that when I dream, it nearly always starts and finishes in the painful bite of dancing flames.

On day twenty, when you are away on a mission, the Superior tells me to describe Isa.

"He was a Virgo."

"Perhaps you could be more specific."

"In all fairness, your question was equally vague, Sir." I pause for a second and ready myself for any consequences when I ask the one question that has been bothering me the moment I was born. "Is there something wrong with me?"

The Superior glances up from his work for just a second. "It's likely."

I sit forwards a little in my designated chair. It's an ornate seat, putting me only twelve inches from him. "It's my twentieth day. I mean…eight days have been and gone. I should have recovered but there's nothing from me. I don't have an element or a weapon I can control. I don't even have a full set of memories."

The Superior sets down his pen and steeps his fingers. "That's why I asked about Isa."

"Well, he…I don't even know where to begin. I can't remember much at all. Lea would know, he's—"

"I'm rather convinced Isa may have been someone who liked to bide his time," the Superior cuts in. "Rational, patient. Isa's life was tainted by disease and perhaps, with the assistance of this forced backseat approach, he was a practical, questioning individual, able to see all sides, from subtle beauty to every ugly truth. That you have pragmatic thinking at your core is likely to be what delays – not prevents – your progress."

"You give me too much credit," I reply, "but the fact remains I serve no purpose in the Organisation."

"Pragmatism doesn't merit punishment," the Superior answers. He clicks off his pen and sits back. "But if you are concerned as to why you still have a seat in the Organisation, then let me explain my position to you."

He summons a portal. More than once, I find myself glancing back at the elegant, imperious hand. "This way."

I follow him through the portal and there is the familiar smell of rotting wood and rain.

Walking through the city with the Superior is nothing like walking with you. The street doesn't erupt in red light and curling smoke. The Neoshadows don't follow in our wake, curious about the Superior's strength; they steer clear and slink into the recesses of empty buildings. The neon signs stop flickering, the rain dissipates, nothing moves and all that breathes is me and the Superior.

He doesn't turn beautiful things into ugly marks.

"Before your arrival, we had assumed we were the only ones. We were born right here, in this dark world, and we fashioned it into a home as we embarked on a journey to regain lost knowledge. Most days have been spent reading and striving for more facts and figures about the worlds and everything in between. Then, out of the blue, Zexion detects two more Nobodies in the city."

"Nobodies?"

"We call ourselves Nobodies," the Superior clarifies. "Mere extensions of the past and what could have been. It interests us, that you and Axel have lost your way and found us instead. We all want to know who you are and why you are. To most of the Organisation, you are a study and a fresh reminder of the reason we keep searching for knowledge."

He stops at a crossroads, toeing the edge of the pavement in thought. We have walked quite far; yet, when I look up and behind me, the Castle still looms over us as a great white shadow.

"I want to see how you react to this world, Saïx. I want to see you take your first steps and stand up without crutches, to make your own decisions and choices, to dismiss every boundary you had in the past, to discard your history altogether. I want to see _your_ reaction, your suffering and triumph, away from the shadow of Isa and in a light of your own."

The neon street signs start to flicker, abruptly buzzing with life and effort. His face flashes in the green and orange glow. "You're the ant I've thrown into water," he finishes, so light it's almost a whisper. "Learn to swim."

You will probably argue that his approach is one of manipulation. You will clench your fists and jaw all over again when you discover I am treading the track just beyond the start line. But it's all right – I promise. I'm not walking away from you.

My thoughts pause on an awkward note. Amidst the grey blur of the Superior and the cloudy sky, there's a dull admittance within me. I cannot decide on its permanence – or if it's even worth mentioning. I can't admit it to you: that an escape from this Castle has all but slipped my mind.

As I stand under a gathering storm, the hem of my uniform flapping against my ankles, I realise I might not join you if you attempt to run. Out here, in the city without flames, the air is unburdened; and I think, has it always been so free beyond your reach?


	8. Lea / Axel: Damaged Goods

**__________________________________**

**LEA, THE BOY WHO'D DISAPPEAR**

\- _eight years before death_ -

______________________________________

 

Three years into our friendship, there was one moment where you were round my house, and all I did was blink.

In all fairness, Bunnymoon had an extraordinary ability to make anyone in her vicinity look adorable, but there you were, playing with her in the garden, watching her do binkies and running your thin fingers over her floppy ears. Your breath came out in cold wisps, and they ran like a dragon's breath across the January air. You had your rodding surgery leaflet poking out your schoolbag's side pocket and behind it was a freebie horoscope guide to the new year you got with your astrology magazine.

"Can I read that?" I pointed to the guide.

You glanced up at me from your awkward position – flat on your back, Bunnymoon curled on your neck like a scarf. You nodded your answer and I seized the booklet. I turned the waffling pages that described destiny in the stars, one by one, as though I wasn't looking for anything in particular. When I reached the double spread page that described the compatibility between Virgo and Taurus, I had to fight to keep down my triumphant smile.

I sat next to you on the dried grass of my garden, and I blinked – and suddenly, I reopened my eyes and realised you were utterly beautiful.

**-x-**

It snowed for five days in February. By the second day, I was fed up of throwing snowballs at my sisters and speaking from behind a snowman to trick old Mrs Pemberton into thinking it was alive. So, on the third, when you finally braved the cold, you prevented my untimely death by boredom.

You must have been wearing about six layers, for when you stepped out of your house, the only visible part of you was the top half of your face. You were wearing high grip boots and a knitted hat, and your arms had to stick out somewhat to accommodate your padded coat. I had to laugh at you.

"What? It's cold," you snapped. "It's not funny, so stop laughing!"

But I didn't, and your face went as red as my hair; and it only took a few more seconds before the anger fizzed out – the way I knew it always did – and you grinned tiredly. "Fine, I look like a prat," you said. "Just so you know, I'm not going anywhere that's downhill. And you're not allowed to throw anything at me."

"I won't, I promise," I said.

I was thirteen and you fifteen, but we walked at the pace of old and arthritic men as you tested your feet against the powdery snow. "It's not too slippery," I said. "When it starts to freeze over, then you'll have to be extra careful. Still, at least you're all padded out so if you do take a fall, you'll practically bounce back up again."

"Shut up," you replied automatically. After a few seconds of letting the humour slide, you added tentatively, "I can't afford to break anything while considering rodding surgery."

"Are you going to do it?" I asked. Your nervous smile was carefully hidden behind your scarf. "I think you should. I mean, if it prevents future breakages, it's a good thing, right? And having metal in your leg isn't too strange a thing. People put metal in their ears and bellybuttons all the time."

"I think this is different." You staggered a little, abruptly throwing off the steady pace of left, right, left, right. "I'm not trying to make a fashion statement."

"But how cool would it be if you were bionic? You know, like a half robot half human with superpowers."

"Be serious, Lea," you said, suddenly grumpy.

I was attempting to play down the daunting prospect in a way that'd reassure us both, but you didn't seem too impressed by this approach. After all, it was a procedure that could change your life forever, and I was talking about it as if I was discussing the specifics of a comic book.

In all honesty, although you often demanded it, I was afraid of my own seriousness. I only adopted it when I felt threatened, like a wild dog backed into a corner, and the jokes and quips were no longer enough to keep my perfect reality glued together. Once, my dad had sat me down and told me to think seriously of my future ("Really? An _athlete_?"), and all I did was snigger at a spot he missed when shaving and tried to see up his nose.

I had grown up seeing the rest of the world through a foggy lens of distortion, which hid away my expendability and worthlessness. The call for being serious shattered that lifesaving lens of fakery and cowardice, and it rendered me into someone so terrified of growing up and seeing the world in its truest form of cruelty, that there was hardly ever logic to my reactions at all.

"Hey, I don't want to spoil your fun," you said. We came to a stop at the square. "If you want a snowball fight with the others, then go ahead." There was a crowd of kids from our school having a snowball fight. They had left stark marks in the blanket of snow where they had scooped up the balls and footprints were squashed onto more footprints. Amidst the friendly battle, there was one familiar girl with her chin tucked into a disgusting furry scarf, as if she had just skinned a ferret on her way here, and she stared longer than anyone else upon our arrival.

Then, she waved, and with a painful twist of my gut, I remembered who she was.

"That's Megan, isn't it?" You leaned forwards a little bit in an attempt to see her better.

"Isa!" she called. She pushed up her hat – it was three times too big and threatening to fall over her eyes – and beckoned for you to come over. You looked between the slippery slope and the jagged steps, at a loss for which precarious route to take. I was about to remark on Megan's inconsideration when out the corner of my eye, I saw you take a few nervous steps down the slope. You gripped the half wall with one hand, clawing for the hard surface by ripping away the thin layer of snow. Your breaths came out in sharp pants of anxiety, but I was certain you were smiling.

"Are you sure—" I started, but you ended my sentence with a fierce nod. Megan sauntered over to the bottom of the ramp. Her cheeks were bright red.

"Hi," you managed to say to her, before going straight to introducing me. "This is my friend, Lea. Lea – you already know Megan, I've told you about her, remember?"

How could I forget?

Of course I knew Megan. From the day you were put next to her in your science class (you were a set lower than me), you hadn't been able to shut up about her. She was fat and had acne hidden by a choppy fringe, but you took an instant liking to her because she was a social outcast and you could relate perfectly to that. Megan had it a lot worse than you because she didn't have a disease she could palm off the bullying to. She was simply fat, to the point the school kids dropped the 'n' off her name and shouted 'Watch out, it's Mega!' across the playground. Her dad was a magician, and when people were bored of calling her all variances of obese, they slandered her father's apparently paedophilic career instead.

I did feel a bit sorry for her. She couldn't help being big, the same way I couldn't help having red hair and you having OI. And being a magician was a career as much as a prosecutor was. Megan was an easy target because she was different, that was all there was to it.

All this reasoning and yet, I resented her more than ever as you walked downhill to greet her.

You had explicitly told me you wouldn't attempt any hills. So why was it suddenly feasible, if Megan was waiting at the foot instead of me? Who was Megan to you?  Why did she matter? More to the point, where was she when you were wheelchair bound? I mean, she hadn't pushed you around for a whole year to lessons, nor had she gone along to your hospital appointments to help you rehabilitate. She didn't even acknowledge your existence. She didn't know the first thing about you.

I squeezed a smile onto my face, but with such force, it probably looked like an executioner's sneer instead. "Hey, Mega," I said. You gave me a sharp look. "—n," I added.

"It's nice to see you out and about," Megan said to you. "You didn't slip at all, did you?"

"No, I'm fine," you said. "Actually, it's not as bad as I thought it would be."

You glanced around at the amicable atmosphere of the whitened Garden and colourful scarves. I had pinched one of my dad's cashmere scarves again, but so far, no one had commented on how grown up and expensive it looked in comparison to the drossy knitted wraps everyone else wore.

"We could build something?" you suggested, and you gave a small nod towards a group of students creating what might have been a small fort. I felt like remarking that whatever you chose to build, be it an ice fortress or a snowman, Megan would still be the biggest thing on this square; and this contempt worked its way onto my face to become a dirty expression of envy.

I joined in merely to humour you. I let you talk about your science classes. I let Megan go on about her family troubles. I let you reciprocate as you talked about your unpleasant cousin and how difficult it was for your aunt to be more accommodating of your illness. I hid behind the snowman we were building, whacked its body into shape until my palms ached from the effort, and I effectively disappeared for a half hour for Megan's and your benefit.

You wouldn't have had the confidence to speak to Megan, were it not for me encouraging you to step outdoors.

You wouldn't have made a mark on the world altogether, were it not for me.

You couldn't throw me away just for a spotty fatso.

Could you?

I peered round our headless snowman to see you and her, together in the snow, and I watched you peel off your gloves to lend to her when her fingers got too cold. It was as though I was peering through the foggy window of my own sitting room, witnessing how well my dad could mingle with his family, without me, and now you could do it too.

My lips tightened, my cheeks flushed with poisonous jealousy, and then my gaze wandered over to the top heavy bin, glistening in the winter sun. I ran over to it, snapped an icicle that dangled off its lid and too eager to see the consequences, I lifted the furry scarf and dropped it down Megan's back.

"Aah!" she cried, and I grinned behind my scarf. She hopped awkwardly, but her arm was too stubby to reach up her back to retrieve the icicle and her jumper had been tucked into her trousers. You tried to help, but your fingers barely went close; you were far too afraid to touch her. In the echoing sniggers of the other kids watching Megan's struggle, I relished the destruction I had caused. You glared at me before trying to recover the situation. "I'm so sorry," you said on my behalf, as Megan shivered and circled her shoulders. "Lea's a bit of a joker."

"Yeah, no hard feelings, Mega," I lied. I couldn't stop grinning at her bright cheeks of humiliation and your similar expression of crossness. My vindictive glee was, however, short lived.

"Huh," said Megan, undeterred, and she offered me a painfully warm smile. "I'll have to get you back."

She began to roll up a snowball, and bloody Megan hung out with us for the rest of the year.

**-x-**

I suppose I had always envisioned you as the resigned boy on the bench with his unattainable wishes, who had unwittingly waited for me. I liked that quality about you – that kind acknowledgement of my existence, but even though you would always be the shattering boy or the wheelchair kid, it wasn't long before everyone else discovered just how much kindness you had in you – if only they gave you a chance.

You crawled out of your shell and started to put your hand up in class. You began to smile more, talk more, at others and especially my older sisters. I caught the frequent occasions where Lara asked you to help with her physics homework, and I caught the interest in your eyes as Lacey enthused about her wonderful boyfriend. You were fast making great choices for yourself without me to guide you, and though your success and happiness was infectious, I still wanted the guarantee I'd be a permanent staple of your life.

At some point, I realised being your friend wasn't going to be enough.

"So," you said from behind the tombstone, on that chilly November evening I've never forgotten, "are you going to explain why you went out of your way to stick salad cream instead of custard on Megan's apple crumble?"

"It was a mistake, honest," I said, and I ducked behind your telescope to adjust its focus. There was supposed to be a good view of a planet tonight, but you were more preoccupied ironing out the creases of your star charts on your knees.

"Well, you play more pranks on her than on all the teachers combined." You exhaled, and you might have come across as angry were it not for the tired expression on your face. "It's a good job she has a sense of humour or else you'd get sent to the head's office and your dad would have to come in again. I mean, do you have a grudge against her or something?" You shook out one star chart and pinned each corner with a small stone. "You're civil enough, but there are times I do think you're crossing the line. Lea, don't do that, it's fragile." And you whacked the tense grip of my hand away from the telescope's lens. You looked up at the sky, momentarily distracted as you somehow located Saturn (I think) amongst the billion pin pricks above us. I studied your cheekbones, cut out in the sharp light of the gibbous moon; and not for the first time, I thought about telling you the bone white skin of your face that was more perfect than the glow of any celestial wonder, was the absence of colour I so envied and wanted.

"I don't have a grudge against her, per se." I shuffled to rest my back against the nearest tombstone. Dry and dead grass tickled me at the bare skin where my trousers didn't quite reach my trainer socks, but the true sensation of prickly discomfort was at the back of my throat. "I just think that if you're that desperate for a girlfriend, you can do so much better than fat Megan, s'all. You _deserve_ better," I amended.

You tilted your head away from the eyepiece, and that was all you favoured me with, before returning to tracking Saturn.

"Okay, so she's not bad personality-wise," I tried. "She can be funny (sometimes). But seriously, she's big. She's probably three times your weight, and you want to avoid fractures, right? Plus she thinks astrology's a load of baloney. She told me so. That's hardly grounds for a serious relationsh—"

"Here." You patted the body of the telescope and stepped away. "Saturn."

I got up and peered through the lens to see a tiny speck in the blackened sky that was presumably Saturn.

"See the rings?" you murmured. "It's in opposition."

"Yeah, pretty hard to miss those massive rings. I can see about three," I lied (because by now, I was slightly rocking the telescope and disrupting its vision and I was not actually interested in the blasted planet at all). "So…are you going to ask her out?"

"Ask whom out," you said absently. You hid behind another star chart and began to manoeuvre the telescope to point to another area of the sky.

"Megan." I crossed my legs and witnessed my remarks fall on deaf ears, and realised perhaps I was vying for information the wrong way. You were clearly in one of your odd moods of hypersensitivity. I tried a roundabout way and weaved our two topics of conversation together in a move I thought was pretty good. "Hey, you should show Saturn to Megan. She'd like that."

"Why," you snapped into your star chart, "so you can tell her we've found something bigger than her?"

I grinned as you flushed immediately. "You said that, not me."

You scowled, and for a wild moment, I thought I had gone a bit too far; yet you somehow regained stony dignity. You pursed your lips, folded up your star chart and took a shuddering breath, as though you were in the defendant's box and awaiting your verdict.

"I need you to listen to me, Lea," you said. "For real this time."

"I always listen to you," I returned.

Your serious frown wrinkled itself into a glower of offense. "Are you serious? I just tested you – I was showing you _Mars_ earlier, not Saturn! Mars doesn't have any rings, and yet you somehow saw three!"

"Fine, fine," I relented, as your cheeks went a similar shade to that of the planet I had failed to recognise. "I admit I wasn't listening then, but that's because I was asking you about Megan and you were avoiding the question."

You sat next to me, your back just shy of the headstone. When I studied us like this, legs and shoulders parallel to one another, I could see the disjointed harmony everyone spoke of.

(The disabled and the able; one who ran, the one who stayed; one beautiful, one not.)

And still – buried beneath the endless, weightless night, surely we looked the same from the sky?

"Listen," you began. "No, seriously, listen to me. I haven't told this to anyone." You folded your arms in a dual attempt to keep warm and create a defensive stance. "…I don't like Megan that way." You wetted your lips. "I don't think I like any girl that way, actually," you revised.

You adopted an expression I had never seen on you before. At first, I pegged it as embarrassment, but I quickly uncovered its various layers of mixed pride and shame, of relief and stress and comfort so great it ached. I smiled, and like a smoky mirror, you offered a shaky grin in return. "You won't tell anyone, will you?" you said. "I'm enough of a freak as it is."

But I didn't think you were a freak. I thought you were amazing, for in one fell swoop, you had highlighted the crucial difference between you and me.

You knew who you were, and you were happy with that discovery. I was still waking up to the ghost in the mirror, hiding behind a cashmere scarf that wasn't mine, thriving off a witless and banal humour I had copied off someone else. I was still the faceless mannequin who chopped and changed outfits to suit the occasion. Underneath the guises, there was nothing.

"Lea?" Your voice echoed across the cool and empty air of the cemetery. "You've gone quiet. You're bothered by it, aren't you."

I wriggled to sit up straight. "Of course I'm not. You're still my best friend, and your secret's safe with me. I'm all right with it." I punched your shoulder lightly, and you grinned, and the expression of relief and assurance that followed all but convinced me there was one fundamental purpose I was destined to always serve.

 

**________________________________________**

**AXEL, THE FLURRY OF DANCING FLAMES**

\- _thirty days after birth_ –

_____________________________________________

 

I don't know if you remember it as well as I do, but one time when we were young, we saw a magician. He was pretty naff and cheesy, but one of his tricks still bothers me. It went a bit like this:

Magician takes a long rope and cuts it cleanly into half.

Magician ties ropes together.

Magician says a spell and like magic, he slides the knot down the length of the rope and it disappears.

Rope is whole.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because you and the Superior are the rope, the two halves of an impossible whole;

and I'm the knot.

**-x-**

You're pretty easy to find. I don't know how big this prison of a castle is – it might go on forever for all I know – but there's only a select number of places you frequent. You're in the lounge this evening, and at first I think you're asleep, but you're merely staring across the room and out the vast expanse of the windows. I sit next to you, slowly and wordlessly, and you inhale deeply through your nose, as though my quiet interruption has been as pleasant as the roar of the dead.

"Hey," I say after a moment.

"Hey," you return, and for several awful minutes, that's all we're able to say to one another. Admittedly, I have a lot to say to you, but none of it is pleasant and it's taking a conscious effort on my part to bite down on the words which one by one, will move you inch by inch, away from me and towards somebody else.

"Can I look at this?" I pick up your book of scribbles. The pages have yellowed round the edges and the spine is in danger of falling apart. It seems likely you've taken it everywhere with you, and the Superior's constant abuse of flicking through your life story has rendered it into damaged goods.

You lean across to inspect it. I want you to settle against my shoulder, the way you used to, but you don't – not until I shift closer and you get the hint. "It doesn't make much sense."

"Maybe not to you," I utter, although I half want to be heard. I'm half tempted to push your memory and feed you the past, just to see what steering you to the edge is like; yet my body seizes up when the book is in my hands. I've never seen what you've written. I think it might be an unconscious attempt to reject who I twisted you into. My mind lingers on Zexion's unhelpful advice and in the wake of it, I have to wonder if it is possible at all, to truly move on when you are the embodiment of my past.

You sit back, sinking into the cushions and glancing up at me. You don't question me when I return the book to your lap, unopened. "Do you remember a girl called Megan?" you say.

"…Your friend at school?"

"Yeah," you say. "I was just thinking about her. You kept calling her fat." And you smile naively, as though we're talking about an average girl buried in the folds of troubled school years, and not the bravest person I knew.

"I drew a start chart today," you continue, "and it seemed to go hand in hand with Megan."

Those stupid giant maps – full of dots and lines and ridiculous proclamations about the future to come. I haven't seen a star chart in years. I'd almost forgotten you used to be an astrology nerd. It seems years ago and yet, that's where you are. You're still tasting the innocent beginnings of the bell curve of our life together, when it was all about school and friends and fucking star charts.

You haven't crashed yet. You hear fragments of poignant history but where you think they're just random and insignificant – like Megan, Elenar and Bunnymoon – they are to me, a heavy reminder of what I'm truly capable of.

"You've been quiet for the last few days," you say after a minute. "I can tell you're not happy with the arrangement, with you on missions and me with the Superior, but…you do know I'm not keeping anything from you, don't you?"

"Course I do." And I shift over and kiss you, because that's always covered the silences of exposed truth. "I know that," I answer more firmly. I trace your hairline with my lips and it's strange, tousled, unkempt. "I'm going to get us out of here. We'll go back to our normal lives, just the way you wanted it."

And you smile because you really think you said that. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, it aches to tell that necessary lie.  You don't know how badly you tried to break free from me, once you realised my warm hold of overprotection had mutated into desperate claws piercing vulnerable flesh.

The thing is, I'm rotting away underneath.

**-x-**

I would be lying if I said your high regard of the Superior doesn't piss me off. I get that he's responsible for the roof over your head but beyond that, any other favours he's doing you is misinterpreted, in my opinion. Keeping you from participating in missions isn't an act of kindness to your fragile amnesia, but a choker disguised as something harmless. Making you write your stream of consciousness isn't a move to find your lost self, it's a scheme set up so that you hand yourself straight into his hands.

Part of me wants to pick you up and carry you away from harm, before he really hurts you.

Most of me thinks you deserve it. It will serve you right if you leave me.

"The Superior has asked we cover all bases for Saix's recovery. I'm here to make sure you understand the fragility of one's memory." That sanctimonious midget Zexion approaches me just after another mundane mission. I'm caked in sweat and muddy rain, but he seems spitefully oblivious of my clear signs of effort. "You have already been warned to refrain from encouraging Saix's memory to resurface, lest it collapses in on itself from the sudden weight."

He walks round me and his nose wrinkles for a fraction of a second. "It would be kinder to rebuild the structure at a steady and manageable pace. Rabbits are easily startled, but they relent to slow and unthreatening movement." Zexion folds his arms, and his clipboard pushes against his chest. "Of course, you were already elusive of your past the moment you got here. While Saix fails to retrieve his memory, you consciously sweep yours under the carpet and pretend it never happened. We all deem it interesting. You seem to possess a staggering number of skeletons in your closet."

I scoff and circle my left shoulder. "You can consider your message received, Zexion. Cross off your mission complete box and go grate someone else."

Zexion stares up at me, and his mouth thins. "I will go beyond what is required of me at this stage and offer you a little advice." He ticks off his box as I said he would. "Whatever it is that makes you keep going back to the past, let it go."

"Why?" I counter for the sake of it. I'm only paying half as much attention as I should be. My arm is actually killing me. Something about it just…hurts. "What happens if I don't? Does someone get assigned the mission of taking it by force?"

"No," says Zexion. "You'll let it go unconsciously, and forget it ever mattered in the first place. And then, when you do reflect back on it, it will only be by chance. It will be an afterthought. The ache is less when you let go of the past of your own accord. You give it its due justice."

I circle my shoulder, clockwise, clockwise, then anticlockwise. It won't set.

Zexion blinks. "Is there a problem with your arm?"

"Just a persistent itch I can't scratch," I answer dismissively. "Catch you later."

I wander off down the maze of white corridors and take a shower. I flick the taps from lukewarm to scalding, and I burn my skin until I can't feel that fucking shoulder, and I knock it against the faultless tiles and dig my nails in so hard they might just leave permanent frowns.

My left arm shouldn't be there. ****

**-x-**

Something you should know about me that you've long forgotten: I'm dangerous, I'm easily frightened and I have a knack for overreacting. It's never easy to work out which one comes first. Still, in all cases, the remaining two always follow, so you might as well consider it a welded trio of emotional instability.

You can thank my father and his fucking cashmere scarf for that.

He's the reason why I behave like this.

We're just kissing tonight. They're harmless, chaste moves of affection and save for the security of our rooms, the only tangible assurance we have left. Yet words and manipulative lies that leave the mouths of this Castle have stirred your wariness awake and leave you guarded and careful, and I need to reroute this carefulness back as trust in me, so that when I tell you another lie, it will never occur to you to question it.

That's how the Superior catches us on the skyway, patching up the broken and burnt bridges between us. He's got Xigbar in tow, and the silence that penetrates the cloudless night resounds like a thunderstorm. You break away from me slowly, and your hand flies to tug your hair straight as it crumples at your hood.

The Superior looks at us as though we revolt him in some way, and that would have been fine. His reaction does not stop there, though. He starts walking away, and Xigbar whistles a merry tune I think I've heard somewhere before, and you open your mouth to murmur something.

And then, without any warning, a gash splits across your face, left to right, and I turn just in time to see a beam of glowing red, a flash of cruelty that darts back to the Superior's left hand and then disperses, swallowed by the night.

Your breath hitches, and I think I stop breathing there and then. You lift a shaking hand to your face, but it never quite reaches the wound. I call up my chakrams in a swift move of controlled fire.

"Careful now," says Xigbar, an arrowgun materialising in his hand. The Superior hasn't even bothered to turn round.

I don't aim for him, though. I aim for you, and I'm so, so sorry.

You don't really understand because you don't consider yourself as something worth having – you never have. The Superior's split second attack on you isn't a punishment because you're associating with me; it's an invitation, a challenge, a haughty leader's way of demonstrating he can destroy and hurt whatever he likes and it will always crawl back to his palm.

The chakram whirrs up your face in an opposite slash to what you already have. You groan, fall backwards and hit the wall of the skyway. You somehow stay standing. Your fingers try to stem the flow of blood, but you can barely see what you're doing.

The Superior turns round. He smiles, a callous acknowledgement of my response, a cold complement to Xigbar's whistling. Your shallow breaths pierce the otherwise quiet night, as I stand in the stench of blood.

I've rotted away underneath.


	9. Isa / Saix: Phantom Keeper

**________________________________**

**ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _eight years before death_ -

____________________________________

 

Just one time, when I was probably about six, my mother took me to the beach. It stretched for about a kilometre in a graceful bend, boasting lengthy shallows and scalloped edges of foamy waves. It was beautiful, but my knees wouldn't stop trembling at the vast expanse of ocean, and the thought of standing in it at its mercy made my heart pound like a crumbling drum losing tension.

My mother took me to the east end, where the parade of blue and yellow striped parasols thinned out and the sun beds were vacant, and she got to her knees to untie my shoelaces. I remember gripping her shoulder as tight as I could with my bruised hand, and I remember how hard I fought back nervous tears, and I remember how my mother coerced the tears to come and then took them away. She rolled up my trousers, shook off her sandals and led me, step by step, to the water's edge.

I was terrified. I kept playing awful scenarios in my head of my mother being swept away to leave me ankle-deep in the water, chained to uselessness by my disease. But she always was so sturdy, and as the disrupted sand swirled round her calves, she ventured another step away. She persuaded me to follow. "You're not going to fall," she said. "I dreamt it. Everything is all right, Isa."

I took a big step, wincing at the icy-then-warm feel of the frothy waters. As the waves ebbed and I walked towards my mother's outstretched arms, I glanced behind me with a shaky laugh at the footprints I had left in my wake, and although they only lasted as long as the next rolling wave, they were sure, continuing proofs of my existence, no matter how flawed or broken I was.

I remember how easily the words escaped, a train of six words simple for a six year old that would otherwise be choked by age and pride.

"I love you so much, Mummy." And then she drew me flush against her side and I wrapped my arms round her so tight it ached. I could have been knee deep in restless sand and water, but I was still in the safest spot in the world.

**-x-**

Five days before your birthday, I started to feel unbearable pains in my left leg, and no matter how hard I willed and berated myself to curb the agony, I simply couldn't heal.

The orthopaedist soon confirmed my femur hadn't recovered as well as he had hoped from that fall three years ago. My aunt and uncle were whisked in, presented with a leaflet on rodding surgery as an automatic yet useless form of courtesy, and then I was booked in for an operation on your birthday.

I was in too much distress at that point to even talk, let alone ask to delay the operation to a less significant date, so you took matters into your own hands. 

"You don't want to go?" You swung your legs off the table as the teacher on lunch duty opened his mouth to shout at you. "Come on Isa, it's the beach. We've never been together before and I don't want you to miss out."

Megan pulled out the chair next to me, shifting my set of crutches aside. "Fill me in?" she said.

"Isa thinks the beach is too good for him."

"I don't," I huffed immediately. I felt colour rise to my face. "I just don't want to go."

"This is my plan." You wriggled in your seat and leaned forwards to cut me out. "Isa can't come to my birthday meal tomorrow because he's got that operation. _So_ , I suggested us all hanging out after school today and going to the beach, as a kind of joint celebration of my birthday and wishing Isa luck. However, he's being difficult about it."

Save for a small intake of breath, Megan didn't react much at all. "He's on crutches," she said plainly. "Or did you forget? He's only been using them for the last five days."

You wrinkled your nose, apparently insulted by her tone. "Yeah, so? They're only to keep the weight off his bad leg in the run up to the op, and we can accomplish that between us if we take a shoulder each.  You know what else the doc said?" You slid your front back off the table, swinging your full weight back into your seat and almost toppling over. "He said you should be at your most relaxed, Isa. What's more relaxing than the beach?"

I pursed my lips and concentrated on finishing my lunch. I could have told you that it was no easy – not to mention relaxing – feat to hobble on crutches from the school to the beach. I could have pointed out that I was limited in what activities I could do. I could have admitted the truly childish reason that held me back was that I didn't want to go to the beach without my mother. I could have told you I much preferred to stay with you than go to an operating theatre and have a telescopic rod jammed into my thighbone.

You grinned at me, shrugging off my worries as if they were painfully trivial, and everything I wanted to say clogged up at the back of my throat when faced with that simple gesture. "You need to stop hiding behind your disease." And you spoke like your own disappointed father.

Something inside of me burst. I couldn't stand up quickly, not with my leg's current state. I couldn't glower or glare, because my face had frozen over. I couldn't do much at all to show you just how much you irritated me, except to counterattack your statement with a hurtful one of my own. "You need to stop telling me what to do!" 

You flushed a brilliant shade of red as though I had just struck you.

**-x-**

I trudged home hating you.

I dragged myself back with the click-thud, click-thud rhythm of my crutches, and though I absolutely detested you for constantly making my decisions for me, I could still only care about you.

As such, despite how the very thought of you made my insides bubble with furious rage and affront, I still ambled my way down the promenade to find you a birthday present.

I had never resented OI so much until now. Growing older was supposed to quell the frailty of my bones, and while this was true to some extent, the infrequency of bone aggravation meant that when complications did finally arise, I wasn't quite ready for the pain.

"Agh…Ow." I hobbled through the sliding glass doors, but one of my crutches got caught on the edge of the doormat.

"Careful, careful!" The shop assistant dashed forwards and he held out his arms in a circle that didn't quite touch me. "Are you uh…sure you're in the right place? This is a sports shop, kid."

"I _know_ I'm in a sports shop, I don't just walk into places by accident." I gritted my teeth and expelled the searing pain of my leg as a terse and probably unwarranted scoff. "I'll be fine now, thank you."

I took deep, steadying breaths and limped over to the corner furthest from the shop assistant. I was met with shelf upon shelf of colourful equipment, of which I couldn't decipher either the sport or function of most. I bit my lip and concentrated on this dulling pain rather than the ache of simply standing up.

"Can I help you at all?" the shop assistant asked finally. He pushed his fringe back into his cap and approached me slowly, as though I was a tetchy dog on alert. "Is there anything in particular you're looking for?"

I assumed he was trying to narrow my search in fear of me accidentally swinging a crutch and knocking down a shelf. I thought about scowling and telling him to show pity on someone else, but I wasn't in a position to take this arrogant liberty. I had to find you a gift in a giant shop specialising in a field I knew nothing about, and somehow have enough energy left to struggle back home.

"…I'm just trying to get a birthday present," I muttered. "He's an athlete."

The assistant tapped his chin. "All right. Well, this section's for water sports, so come this way." He led me to a rather narrow aisle and began to list items I could consider as a gift, from flashy watches and wristbands to heart rate monitors and joint supports. They all sounded perfect and ideal until my eyes scoured the yellow price tabs that marked up the shelves.

Considering the only source of my money was the life savings my mother had put aside for me, I had little to spend. I swallowed, gripped my crutches tight by their handles and uttered, "Actually…I think I'll give it a miss."

"Out of your price range, huh," said the assistant, not sounding too sympathetic. "You could always try the sale bin. It's right by the door."

So I limped over there next, and I cursed under my breath when my knees began to shake from the effort of pushing my weight along. I stuck my arm in the bin of junk, feeling past the fraying sweatbands and odd socks, and right at the bottom, I retrieved a pair of discs. Their surface was somewhat scratched and ever so slightly dented, but as soon as I turned them over in my hand to see the comical image of grinning fire, I felt a smile work its way onto my face. They were the exact shade of your hair, they had the same wild façade pasted over a fragile heart too shy to admit its existence.

They were cheap, second hand, and you deserved so much more than a simple pair of frisbees, but I couldn't seem to let them go. I cleared my throat and wrenched my upper body round. "…I'll take these."

**-x-**

Your birthday rolled round.

I was flat on my back, staring up into six pairs of eyes, slipping into the blurred pages of a storybook I had ready for myself. I had the vaguest sensation someone might have been holding my hand, but that was impossible because I didn't know anyone here, and even if I did, I would have been too frightened to initiate contact.

I pretended I was bound tight and safe next to you, and on the blank canvas in the freedom of anaesthesia, I sculpted a vibrant dream and imagined it was real and honest and plausible. I untied you from your scarf, and you untied me from my disease. A hungry wave rolled up to our feet, as quiet as a whisper. We held hands on the beach, and we watched our problems sail away from reach and sight.

For some reason, I woke up screaming.

**-x-**

Before my operation, I had politely asked you to not visit me until three days after the surgery. Despite our sour parting regarding the beach, I had been expecting you to disregard my request and visit early to spite me. However, you waited out the three days, and I forgave you for everything because of it.

You wandered into the ward with your face hidden behind a large bouquet of flowers, and you dropped them on the table with an audible grunt.

"Those are from my mum," you said, and set down a small tub, "and this is a slice of birthday cake from me. It might taste a bit stale – three days after all – but I kept it airtight and come on, it's chocolate, so it's going to be nice regardless."

"Thanks, Lea. And thanks for coming along."

You pushed your flowers to the centre, taking extra care to knock back other items that occupied that space. Your fingers lingered on the tag that labelled the flowers from your sister Lara, and your eyes fell on the get well soon card Megan had carefully stuck into a handmade basket of fruit.

"…I guess it was only me who listened to your three day rule," you remarked. You smiled, but it didn't quite reach extend to your eyes.

"I didn't ask them to wait three days," I admitted. I wanted you to at least sit down. You cut a surprisingly daunting figure, standing at the foot of my bed, but you appeared to have frozen.

"I know, Megan told me," you said finally. "She saw you only a few hours after your op and suggested it was good that I had stayed away because I'm 'too much'. Her exact words. I mean, it's hard to believe, but I do actually know how to be quiet." It ached to witness you behave so nonchalantly about something that was clearly bothering you.

"Lea, you're reading too much into it. The thing is…after surgery, I wasn't allowed to shower until this morning and it also takes a while for the pain and painkiller routine to kick in so I get pretty nasty. I didn't mind the others, but…I didn't want you seeing me looking gross and behaving foul, not if I could help it. That's all there was to it." I hit my remote to push the headrest of my bed up a little. "I'm feeling a lot better now that I'm properly drugged up."

The tenseness left your shoulders. For a moment, I thought you were going to shout at me but instead, you worked a shaky grin on your face and sighed. "I thought maybe I had done something wrong, or upset you in some way. More to the point, it doesn't matter to me how you look or behave. I think I'd cut you a bit of slack, given you've just had metal drilled into your bone."

"It matters to me."

You folded your arms slowly, as though you were embracing something invisible and pulling it into your heart. "Was the operation all right?"

"Yeah – the doctors said it's looking good. I'll be out in a few days and on crutches for the next three months. How was your birthday?"

"All right, except Elenar kept whinging about how there was nothing but prawn in the menu and wanted to go somewhere else. Dad said no, so she was in a sulk for most of the evening."

Finally, you sat down. You fidgeted with the drawstring pulls of your trousers, trying to paint over your nerves with a lofty voice. "So uh…I'm sorry about pressurising you to go to the beach. You know how I get ahead of myself. I wasn't trying to order you around, I promise."

I didn't quite know where to look that wouldn't make me ache with my own guilt, and I settled uncomfortably on the sharp point of your chin. "It's all right. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm sorry too."

I tried to dissect your expression and pin down your current emotion, but you were surprisingly unrelenting, preferring to wear an impenetrable mask of detachment.

An uneasy silence wriggled between us, and you used the time to pick dirt off the side of your shoes.

"Oh, I had almost forgot," I said after a moment. "Uh…there's a paper bag inside my overnight bag just down there." I pointed to my left. "It's your birthday present. Sorry, I couldn't wrap it."

"Don't be silly," you said. You yanked the zip and retrieved the crinkled brown paper. "This?"

You lifted up the frisbees and I strained to fix my gaze on you. I waited for disappointment to flit across your face before you masked it as your default of nonchalance. However, you never expressed any form of unhappiness.

"Brilliant," you breathed, and you rounded on me. "Do you know I've been dropped from the discus team? Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous! They put me on as a sub as if I wouldn't mind being second best, so I quit! These look more fun anyway. Hey, how fast d'you reckon these can go?"

You seemed to have forgotten you were in a confined hospital ward. Before I could stop you, you took one frisbee, swung your arm back and hurled it. It shot away, severe and scorching red against the pale skin of the room, and it smacked into the striped blinds with a colossal thud. I watched, in a perfect cross of horror and awe, as the blinds rippled and then slowly fell apart to scatter on the floor.

You burst into a quick and embarrassed laugh, and I realised with a sharp intake of my breath just how much I had missed our grins. You fidgeted with your remaining frisbee. "Whoops."

**______________________________**

**SAÏX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

\- _thirty-one days after birth_ -

_________________________________

 

While I'm locked away in unconsciousness, my thoughts stumble over a pair of elegant items in the wreckage of my past. The stickers on them are dry and worn at the edges, and the plastic is dented from their overuse. If I remember right, they're deceivingly fast and damaging.

When I open my eyes, most of my vision is obstructed by something white. I try to blink it away.

"Don't move." Zexion's voice hovers above me. There is a forceful push to my chest, and it effortlessly renders me immobile. "I don't want you jeopardising my work. Stay still while I finish up."

I feel like I have been asleep for days.

There is a bitter smell, like old medicine or antiseptic. Zexion's hand comes towards my eyes, blotting out the light. Then, he starts to peel back what I think is my skin, until I realise it's not painful enough and what has happened instead, is that he's simply removed a gauze from my face.

"You can sit up now."

He gives the explicit order, but I find I can't. From this angle, Zexion cuts a tall and harsh figure. His visible eye rests on me without a trace of care. "I've minimised the damage as much as possible. You will, however, have a scar."

I try to touch the stinging pain between my eyes, yet my nerves make no confirmation my hands are there. I'm numb, frozen.

"Oh. You might feel a little drowsy," Zexion says, around a lazy smile. "I had you anaesthetised in order to treat a small error in your body. The Superior had noticed you were walking with the slightest limp, so I took the liberty of rectifying it. I had this removed."

And he holds up a bloody, telescopic rod between his fingers. It teeters in the idle grasp, and then Zexion sends it to the stone floor, out of my sight.

It screeches on impact. It breaks.

And to think, I once relied on that.

**-x-**

When you watch a frisbee, you know it doesn't just fly, it soars. It cuts the sky into two with a thick, bloody arc and when you watch it sail and spin, you often feel your own feet have lifted off the ground too.

When you throw a frisbee, you don't have to catch it. Despite its simple structure, it's durable, withstanding. It can get stuck in trees and skid into ponds and pick up dew and grass and it will pull through with the most minor of scratches.

When you see a frisbee, you tend to reach for it anyway. Most times, it knocks the tips of your fingers and leaves a stinging ache in the wake of that split second impact. Other times, it hits you straight on your chin. Every now and then, you fall over in a failed bid to keep up with it.

I've often wondered – why do we chase after the things we know aren't good for us?

**-x-**

There aren't any mirrors in the Castle halls. I suppose, as wandering ghosts of this secluded palace, we are not keen to be reminded we still have a shape. Xigbar stares for an unusually long time. He has just come back from an errand and is wringing rain out of his hair, when his yellow eyes linger on my own. He might look stunned for just a moment, but I'm convinced I have imagined it for he quickly breaks into an amused grin.

"Hey, Saïx." He wanders over and the point of an arrowgun rests comfortably on the bridge of my nose. "Careful where you look. Anyone would think you're provoking us."

I move the gun away with a lazy arm. "I'm looking for Lea."

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know," Xigbar answers. "Axel's being treated by Vexen at the moment. There's something wrong with his left arm and he needs it seen to. I see you've recovered well from Zexion's treatment."

I vaguely recall the sinking world of my unconscious, of being flat on my back, oblivious to the errors of my body. I look down at my legs and try to recall if I have limped at all since leaving the treatment wing. And then I rewind further, to remember Zexion's fingers on my face. I had sustained an injury there, too. Xigbar's eyes roll towards the long line of windows, and I spot my reflection trapped in them.

"They did you well and proper, didn't they?" Xigbar favours me with a lopsided smile, murky and distorted in the rainy windowpane. "Still, at least it's nowhere prominent." He snorts to himself but I am barely paying attention.

At the sight of the fresh scar, I remember the prickly silence that had followed the searing pain of impact. I remember how you had looked more shocked than me. I had stood outside with blood running down my hands, but it was yours that had been shaking.

I turn back to Xigbar. He's still making comments about my face, so I cut him off midway. "What's wrong with Lea's arm?"

"You're asking the wrong guy." He gives an affable shrug. "He's been complaining that it hurts and is affecting his fighting. Vexen actually offers an olive branch and the next thing we know? Axel's hollering for us to leave his damn arm alone. The guy's a walking contradiction."

Xigbar exhales and waves his arms in a dramatic gesture to shrug off your enigma. He might not understand, but I'm already quite acquainted with your tendency to say one thing and mean the opposite. I can delve into the core of your childhood and retrieve barbed memories of occasions when you had grinned because you were angry, laughed because you were frightened, hurt because you cared.

"Hey, Saïx," Xigbar says after a moment. "I told you Axel was training. You're not allowed to interfere with that. Your job is to sit out. Superior's orders."

I ignore him and by extension, the Superior. I end up biting my tongue and flinching because there is something acidic in his words.

"Yeah, great chatting to you too, Saïx," Xigbar calls after my silence pointedly. "Always a barrel of laughs."

I fix my hood up to protect me from the rain, and then I head down the walkway that snakes round outer walls. There's a large hall at the east end of the Castle, buried in the three-sided niche of a gallery that is suspended from the spotless ceiling. The floor is sectioned by giant snowy columns, spliced by the deformed shadows of Dusks and Nobodies.

This is where you normally train with Lexaeus, and though I find you, you are barely training at all. Instead, you are perhaps letting Lexaeus vent his frustration by bruising every inch of your body. Your coat has been thrown haphazardly onto a table, where it drapes like an ugly, hollowed out carcass. Lexaeus delivers blow after blow, his large hands unbelievably adept, and your body twists from the strain.

"There is most certainly some lazy work on your left side," remarks Vexen. He sits on a chair away from the fight, poking at a computer keyboard. "Normally, we'd let that slide, but it seems such an unusual attribute for someone who thinks he is ambidextrous."

"I. _Am._ Ambidextrous," you manage between sharp breaths. Lexaeus goes for your temple and you throw out a chakram to defend yourself. Lexaeus retaliates by knocking it out of your grip with a single backhand.

"You shouldn't be so reliant on your weapons," Vexen says idly. "Control yourself. Find your strength beyond your element and chakrams. You need to become familiar with the raw essence of who you are before you can utilise your elemental attribute at its full potential."

"Yeah, well, at the moment I'm only getting familiar with Lexaeus' raw essence." You elbow him weakly, abruptly ending the training. "Fucking beast."

"Perhaps tomorrow then, since Lexaeus has done you in for the day," says Vexen. He clears up his desk and excuses himself with a gruff mutter. Lexaeus passes you a towel and then nods at me. "Saïx," he greets. He heads off to the showers.

Your shoulders tense as you turn round. You spend a few seconds training your gaze to settle on my eyes and not the scarred space between. Then, you sling your towel over your shoulders and beckon me over.

"Xigbar said your arm is giving you trouble."

You circle the shoulder in question and push a hand through your hair. "Vexen calls it a phantom ache," you reply, somewhat too evasively for my tastes. "You know, my thinking it aches is making it ache, basically. It's fine though, look."

You toss a chakram up and catch it a few times, and the spinning wheel skids dangerously close to awkward reminiscence.

"It's not like you to be weak," I comment. You don't say anything, and because you don't, I start to wonder if this is a fatal assumption I have made before. I have always hidden behind the toughness of your arrogance, letting you phrase my emotions and thoughts better than I ever could. No one knows me better than you do, and maybe the burden of being my keeper has created fractures, driven cracks of uncertainty into your empowering overconfidence.

Slowly, as though wordlessly telling me I can step away if I want, you bring a finger to trace my scar. Your touch is coarse and it stings, a nettle remorseful of its talent. Your mouth contorts and you manage to squeeze an impressive amount of fury in a single blink, but no words leave you.

I lean across and kiss your left shoulder, and I feel your muscles relax in response to my forgiveness, and that's all I need. You don't have to apologise because you don't mean it. What had happened was a spark of true and honest reaction. You had struck me to protect me from the Superior, and I can forgive you for that instinct.

I don't, however, forgive the Superior.

**-x-**

There's a page in my book of written consciousness that doesn't make sense, no matter how I adjust its orientation and try to think outside the box. It isn't like a star chart, which, unless it is held at the right angle, will always be a spatter of random dots. It appears to be a cross between text and pictures, spanning six pages, the ink spilling right to the edges of the paper in curious letters, symbols and angular markings. I remember scrawling this text, treating it like a language I had created and nurtured myself. I remember idly thinking _just one wrong letter, an extra space, and the entire sequence is ruined_ – but I'm not sure why. The more I try to harness my runaway thoughts, injecting some consciousness to them, the blurrier they become.

There are a lot of things I don't understand about myself, and it frustrates me to think all the answers are with you, so tantalisingly close. It should comfort me, that I have such an efficient keeper, yet I cannot seem to get past the callous possibility that being ignorant of the truth is exactly what is rendering me useless. You know more than I do and, like always, you take the hits more than I do. You behave like you're the sole barrier between me and a destructive storm, and maybe you are, but what you are doing isn't doing either of us any good.

You want to protect someone who doesn't want it.

I want to protect someone who doesn't need it.

It's an odd place, the Castle. Whenever I admire the stark architecture, flawlessly beautiful with its limited palette, it's only a little later that I realise it's all done by the Superior's hand. That he has crafted the Castle _and_ all her inhabitants is a simple fact I seem to struggle to acknowledge. I suppose I have never been fond of architects and their need to build, as though just being sand or clay or granite by itself is not enough to impress.

I stretch across the vast surface of the half wall. The suspended walkway over the Castle's east wing shivers in the wind and for a moment, I think you're standing with me, in it together, two pairs of feet in the wet sand, two pairs of hands pushing out the raft.

I grasp the thick handle of the urn. It's an adornment on the rocky walkway, until I snap it by the base and it becomes unhinged from the newel post. It almost sings when my fingernails flick its bulbous belly. I set the urn on the wall and look below me at the vast expanse of the east wing's corridor. The Superior and Xigbar are buried in the darkness with their coats, but I only need to close my eyes to listen as their footsteps echo a change from the concrete tiles to the metal grills in the centre.

"I don't like being told what to do," I explain, and then I push the urn off and watch it dive.


	10. Lea / Axel: The Basket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains several upsetting scenes of humiliation and discrimination, so please read with caution. Also, for canon continuity, Lea and Isa's scene with Ventus in Birth by Sleep occurs between the previous chapter and this one. There's a time skip to accommodate this.

________________________________________

  **LEA, THE BOY WHO'D DISAPPEAR**

\- _six years before death_ -

________________________________________

 

Myde Rossiter was a boy in our year with bad hair and permanent shadows under his eyes. He was one of those unfortunate sods who worked hard at school but was eternally doomed to be as thick as a post. I had only had a couple of run-ins with him. The strongest memory in my mind was the time he had been asking around for a drinking straw. When no one offered one, he sawed the middle of his juice carton open with a ruler, and spent the rest of the hour pissing himself laughing because it had exploded all over the rest of his lunch.

There was something else about Myde, though: he was a musician. He wasn't forced into it by pushy parents telling him to do this and be that; Myde was a musician because denying it would be like rejecting his very existence. He seemed to be built from music, carrying more manuscripts than textbooks, slinging a guitar case where his schoolbag should have been. He sang down the corridors when he was happy, strummed a mournful piece in the cloakrooms when he was sad. Myde only had one layer to his eyes and smile and words. The same way he penned his thoughts and crafted them into honest, transparent melodies, what you saw with Myde was what you got.

It didn't really surprise me that Myde Rossiter was your first crush.

**-x-**

I really hated how our school preached on and on about The Future, as if parents weren't already doing a good enough job. Apparently, if by the age of sixteen you didn't have a trajectory more detailed than, say, the blueprint of an underground vault, you were irrevocably screwed.

As such, our teacher implemented new lessons in place of private study, where we all sat together and discussed how incredibly important The Future was. In these lessons, we worked towards discovering our life goals and career aspirations. We did personality quizzes to see if we were a genius or a psychopath in the making; we got into pairs and did joint research on the plethora of opportunities The Future had in store for us. In the last few sessions leading up to the end of term, our final project was to collect everything we had learned about ourselves and present to the class what hopes we had for The Future, as though we really had a say in it.

In our class, three of us wanted to be teachers, and after the recent show of new creatures creeping into Radiant Garden, twelve of us wanted to be researchers. When Megan plodded to the front of the classroom and announced she was going to become a therapist, she was met with barrels of laughter, and one boy remarked that patients would mistake fat Megan to be the couch rather than the doctor. Considering how her presentation went, I wasn't surprised when you muttered to me in one class, "I don't want to do it."

I had already done mine. I went straight after Myde, who couldn't even spell the word 'maestro' on the blackboard and somehow wound up talking about his uncle's mortgage repayments instead. Myde got the teacher to crack a bright smile at his silliness. I, on the other hand, got lumbered with a detention for announcing my career as a lawyer could sod off and in fact, the future in general could do one because I was perfectly happy right where I was. My future wasn't a giant branch of opportunities and routes like everyone else's. My future was a steel ventilation shaft and there wasn't any way I could claw up and out of it. My dad had long dismissed my interest in sports as a childish hobby I'd soon outgrow, that being a lawyer was my dream and not his, that my muck about approach to life was just an embarrassing tantrum of defiance and nothing to do with being a warped distress call.

"I can't do it," you hissed urgently. "I don't even know what to talk about."

"What did your questionnaire give you as career suggestions?" I leaned across the table and pried your fingers off your papers. The moment I did, your hands shot back as though I had just stapled you. Your face contorted.

"It suggested I be a teacher."

"Well, talk about that then," I said, but you seemed so downcast that in the back of my mind, I knew I was missing something crucial.

"I don't want to be a teacher."

I laughed on reflex. "Isa, you don't have to take it all so seriously. What, you think those twelve people who want to be researchers, are actually going to _be_ researchers? This is just a doss lesson designed to make you think your crazy ambitions are within reach. It's a lesson in false hope – got it memorised? That's why I'm not participating."

You sank down in your seat, head resting on folded arms. Your teeth grinding on the end of your pen rang louder than the collective chatter of class, and you muttered until the end of class, "I can't do it. I don't want to do it."

**-x-**

In the wake of difficult career choices, you ended up taking two days off sick. I was surprised it had had such an effect on you. In any case, I tried visiting on your first day off, but your aunt turned me away before I could even ring the doorbell.

The second day followed a different tune. While walking out of school with Megan, both of us wondering out loud if you were all right, I spotted your aunt waiting at the school gates. Her lips were thin and she had attempted to hide her tiredness with makeup.

"Lea, perhaps I could have a word?" She seemed to regard speaking with me to be about as pleasant as rubbing her nose in animal waste. "It's Isa. He's not well."

"What's wrong with him?" Megan and I said at the same time.

"That's just it," your aunt said stiffly. "We don't know. The doctor's been round to check and said there's nothing wrong with him."

I scoffed in disbelief – because wasn't it obvious that the worst injuries were the ones you couldn't see? – and Megan ducked her head to politely address your aunt. "Isa has been worrying a lot in his career classes. He might be stressed."

Your aunt took a deep, shuddering breath. "…He won't eat," she confessed, and then she corrected herself with obvious distress. "I mean to say, I can't get him to eat. I've tried everything, and normally I wouldn't…well, I wouldn't—"

 _resort to asking you_ , I finished in my head. But I grinned at her and pretended I was the first point of call, and not the last. "Don't worry, Miss, I'll look after Isa."

**-x-**

This probably wasn't the best time to make such an observation, but you had a knack for making even sickness something quite beautiful. When I stopped round your house and slipped into your room, I was left amazed at how you could lie so motionless in bed and yet, still boast a riot of betraying emotions – taut shoulders of defiance, stark pale skin of worry, mussed hair of hopelessness. Your sheets were crinkled, bunched together with your tight fist as its core; they drew lines down your body like desperate tree roots fighting for support. You were so thin, so tired and yet something so extraordinary to look at; I felt you ought to be on a pedestal with me at your feet, drawing you in an attempt to replicate your elegance.

There was a tray of untouched food on your bedside table. Carefully, I moved it to the study desk and dragged your chair over. "Your aunt swallowed her pride and asked me to come round," I began, but I might as well have been talking to the wall. You stared straight through me. "You want to talk?"

You answered that question easily with your silence. I spent a few moments studying the sharp contours of your collarbone and then tried again. "I think Myde was looking around the classroom for you today. You like him, don't you?"

You tensed up and your lips thinned. Still, you said nothing, and I surmised I wasn't saying the right thing. You were complex, but not in the way I was. You weren't a thousand conflicting emotions, nestled in lies and schemes; instead, you had a thousand defences, a thousand barriers to break – and usually this would be easy, if only you would look at me.

"You don't have to be a teacher, you know." I rested my elbows on your bed and propped up my chin with my hands. "You don't _have_ to have a grand plan," I said, but I knew even without your confirmation that I was far, far off the mark. I had to look for something more basal, more emotional, something that could lock your tongue and freeze your bones. I wetted my lips, almost afraid to ask. "Did someone hurt you, Isa?"

Still, nothing. I kept in a sigh and sat back in my seat. I didn't think there was anything more raw or frightening than being hurt by someone else. My dad had often spoke in court on behalf of traumatised victims of assault, how they were wrecked and ruined with invisible fractures across their skin, how they felt their voice had lost its worth, how the world had betrayed them in the cruellest way possible.

And then – as my gaze drifted across your room to the pack of tarot cards poking out from a stack of star charts – I worked it out. "Bad dream?"

Your gaze was wary, as if you weren't sure who I was. "I don't dream."

"Course," I murmured. You rolled onto your back, blinking fiercely. I wanted to ask you what you had seen, what slice of the future had crawled into your unconscious and hurt you this badly. I wanted to ask you and yet, I already knew. Only I was capable of making you react like this.

You lay still. Your hands clenched and unclenched. "…There's fire," you said finally. "Lots of it."

I reached for those bony hands, but you wriggled away with a sharp intake of breath. It was difficult to pretend I wasn't hurt by such a callous move. "We better carry fire extinguishers round with us from now on." I smiled – because ages ago, that's all it took to cheer you up – but instead of returning it, you tried to hold back an audible choke. Something dribbled down your face.

"You're going to kill yourself, Lea."

I felt the fire then, somewhere between my gut and throat. You had frozen in bed; I had burned to a crisp in your gaze. Finally, you looked at me. I wished you'd stop.

"It's not funny," you breathed. "It's really not funny. Stop doing that face!"

It was only when I started at the tone of your voice that I realised I had been grinning at you. Where you had been rendered immobile and sick in response to your premonition, I had buckled in my own way and taken refuge in my simplest disguise.

"…What happens?"

You gave a tiny shrug. "An explosion? I…I don't know. All I know is it's your choice."

"I don't know what to say," I said eventually. "I mean, I hardly feel suicidal now and I can't account for my future actions."

"Really?" you spat back. You sat up in bed and rubbed your face furiously. "I replay that horrid vision every time I close my eyes, and when I'm awake, all you do is confirm it's going to happen. Why are you doing this to yourself, Lea?"

I preferred you when you were nonresponsive. At least that way, the pain was dull and constant, and nothing like the progressive verbal strikes that you now felt compelled to deal.

"I mean, you stood up in front of class two days ago and announced your career as a lawyer could sod off, but minutes later you were researching the bar exam and taking out library books on law. You go on and on and _on_ about how you're doing your own thing, but you're a copycat enough as it gets. That stupid collection of scarves and watches you ransack to dress like your father; you're even copying his catchphrase." You fought out of the covers, proving you could barely fill out the old shirt and shorts you were in. "What is it, Lea? What bothers you so much about yourself that you have to pretend all the time? You…you don't like who you are?"

I was wrapped up in soft cashmere. My fingers had flown to my scarf by instinct, and I tugged and pulled, but the choking sensation wouldn't go away. "You won't understand."

"Try me," you said, so prompt and so naïve. I very nearly did. I very nearly opened the closet to reveal my skeletons; nearly admitted that I wanted to strangle Myde for thieving you; that I wanted to be like my dad because I needed to learn to successfully protect the people I cared about; that I wanted to be tough and witty and fiery and everything you weren't, so you'd stay; that it was all because of you, that I woke up some nights sticky and flushed, and had to change my sheets in the dark before anyone could ask; that I prayed for days when Megan was off sick and it'd be just us two; that if you stripped me of my masks and falsities, tore right to my core, you'd only find yourself – because that was all I was.

"Lea," you said after a moment. "I'm worried about you. Look at me, I'm _sick_ with worry."

Your hands shook in the tousled sheets. I reached for you, slow and careful, at the pace of a predator. "I think your vision was a symbolic one. You know, metaphoric."

Your frown increased. "They don't work like that."

"Sure they do," I fed you, getting up from my seat, "because I'm going to explode at some point if I don't ever get to do this."

"Do what?" You scrabbled back but I already had one knee between yours, pinning you in the sheets. I reached for the back of your neck and closed the gap between us.

I hadn't ever kissed anyone before, but I had often seen my eldest sister macking with her boyfriend at the school gates, and it seemed simple enough. I had seen my parents kiss too, and could surmise that unless one person was wrinkling their nose, pursing their lips or wriggling away, then the level of care a kiss denoted was surely mutual.

Your hand was freezing, even though you had spent so long in a stuffy room. I trembled as your fingertips grazed my cheekbones and you shifted closer. I kissed harder, deeper, forced it into something beyond an innocent first time. I wasn't gentle but then again, neither were you. You threw your reservation aside, buried your hands in my hair and breathed out my name. The prickly teases travelled from the back of my neck to my collarbone, and it was just as I leaned into your touch that you seized up.

"Stop," you whispered. You pulled away, fingers tracing your mouth. They were shaking. "What…what am I doing? Lea, I…it's wrong, it's so wrong."

"Why?" I challenged. "It's right. Nothing's ever felt more right, and you know it."

Your eyes softened. You could tell how much you were breaking me and yet, because it was such a change in roles, it mattered all the less. "Lea, we're friends. Anything more than that, and I have to sit down and think whether it's really worth losing my best friend over. To be honest with you, I can't deal with that at the minute. I…I've only got a year left of school and I'm not well off like you. I'm not smart or rich or confident. I have to study and focus, and right now, as hard as it is for the both of us, I really need you to be my best friend."

"And I can be that, I promise," I said immediately.

"No, you can't. N-not after…you know. Look, we're not doing each other any good," you admitted. "I feel like I do more bad than good around you. Do you feel that?"

I knew you had tasted the poison in me. I should never have kissed you until I was absolutely certain I could lace the venom with enough honey.

"No." I folded my arms, thinking that was enough pressure on my chest to twist lies into truth. "I think we're perfect together."

"We used to be, maybe," you conceded.

I had experienced this many times before. I went through friends the way others went through clothes; I wasn't anything permanent. I was too loud, obnoxious, forthcoming; I was always someone's passing phase. You had, for six incredible years, made me believe I had finally broken out of this cage of a lifestyle, but you had merely taken me round a giant, six year long circle.

I stood in front of you, hot and humiliated, still tasting you on my lips, and I wished for nothing more than to terminate a friendship – for the first time – of my own accord.

**-x-**

The next afternoon, you had to stand in front of the class to talk about your career plans. To my surprise, you announced you wanted to be a teacher and contrary to your words from before, you _could_ do it. You could stand in front of thirty people and talk confidently. I spat out the shred of paper I had been chewing, swung my chair forwards for it to land back on four feet, and I admitted at last, that I cared for you in such a way, you hardly needed me any more.

I lifted my hand. You stopped talking, glanced across the stretch of the classroom and then at our teacher.

"You have a question, Lea?" she said.

"Yeah. I just wanted to ask Isa how he's going to become a teacher."

You blinked. I saw out the corner of my eye that Myde had lifted his head in mild interest. "I…I've just explained the—"

"I know, but won't there be some sort of issue?" I leaned back in my seat, and I folded my arms behind my head so no one could see my hands shaking. "I mean, you're gay, right?"

And just like that, from the back of the room, over the cluster of snickers, I heard the thread tying us break. Like a bicycle chain getting caught, like a tree branch exploding in lightning, like one of your bones snapping. You flushed, racing from pale to burning red. "I…" you started.

"Excuse me, Lea, you don't make accusations like that," said the teacher, but I shook my head at her.

"No miss, he told me." I grinned at you, at the way your eyes darted with embarrassment and horror. You looked just like I always did when people were done with me. "Trust me," I said, turning round to address Megan, Myde, everyone in class, "that's just the first level of his weirdness."

I laughed, and it tasted like bile at the back of my throat. I didn't care that the teacher subsequently threw another detention at me, that when you sat back down, there was a chorus of cruel whispers. I didn't care at all when Megan hissed at me and called me a bastard. You wanted to dump a friend; I had merely shown you a better way to go about it.

 

 

 ____________________________________________

**AXEL, THE FLURRY OF DANCING FLAMES**

\- _thirty-six days after birth_ -

____________________________________________

 

A simple lesson that's a ridiculous conundrum to a fifteen year old:

Friend A and Friend B hold a two handled basket between them. In it is everything that makes them friends. There's light stuff, like inside jokes and silly secrets and the habit of borrowing the other's stationery for the day; and there's the heavy stuff, like trust and big promises and confessions.

The basket is fragile, though. It's crafted in such a way that it needs to be supported at both handles. It relies on mutuality. If Friend A adds more to the basket and Friend B can't hold the weight, Friend B will inevitably let go.

And it doesn't matter if Friend A takes the weight back out or even says he'll carry for the both of them – the basket doesn't work like that.

**-x-**

A rumour descends on the Castle like a finger idly running down the strings of a guitar, that you pushed an ornamental urn off a sixty foot drop and nearly hit the Superior with it. It's a rumour that twists a smile onto me which, for all its callousness, feels weirdly impalpable.

The next day, you say almost nothing, preferring to sit and scribble away in your book, turning it round and round in your hands like a sea captain steering his ship back on course. There's a blank between this scene of searching and a moment afterwards, when the glass panel behind you is suddenly fractured. You say you didn't do it. There's a spider web of lines, and when I examine the intricate pattern, my reflection is somehow smiling.

One time, at the rare occasion of eating with others, you randomly snap your head up and stab Lexaeus' hand with your fork. I burst out laughing at his immediate wince – fuck knows the brute deserves it after all the blows he's dealt me – and your gloves squeak with the forceful grip of your fingers.

There's another incident. The Superior – courtesy of Zexion – has a medical record drawn up on you and for the purposes of accuracy, it's important you have a look at it. Xaldin chucks a file at you; you chuck it right back. It explodes against the window when powered by your throw. The papers burst from their confines like moths fluttering free of the flame. They fall at the Superior's feet, a shapeless blanket of snow, and I laugh at that too.

There's an alcove, an arched expanse of refuge beneath a bridge, and the puddles creep at our boots and there are damp streaks of rain running down the walls, and you react again, unprovoked and uncharacteristically fierce. You lash out and strike me, a strong fist that goes straight for my collarbone. The sound of impact echoes and bounces off the stone.

After that, it stops being so funny.

**-x-**

You're in the examination room for the first time. You're as pale as the whitewashed walls, still raking your hair and tugging at it to the point that over the days, the crown of your head has considerably shorter, spikier hair. Vexen and Lexaeus are running standard tests, but the real observations are coming from the other side of the glass. I try to sit apart from the others. I twirl a chair and sit on it the wrong way round, my back to the Superior. Zexion won't have any of it, though, and he sits on the half wall as a black smudge of annoyance in my peripheral vision.

"There is something wrong with him," Zexion says. In the background, the Superior, Xaldin and Xigbar shuffle paperwork; they compartmentalise you into words and numbers, as if you're that easy to solve.

"I got beaten up once." I lean forwards on the backrest, but Zexion doesn't quite slip from view. "There was something wrong with me too. I had red hair."

I hold his stare, unrelenting. Then, Zexion smiles a thin line of deadly patience and calm. "You misunderstand me, Axel. I was not stating an opinion, rather making a translation of your expression. You believe something is wrong with him."

He gives me little time to recover from his astuteness. It seems pointless to mask my concern when he has so easily shot an arrow right through its centre. "Well, something doesn't sit right," I admit. "These flashes of anger. They're so irrational. Isa was never like that."

"He was never angry?" Zexion talks in such a way, I don't need to look at him to acknowledge his contempt.

I chew the mouth of my glove. Answering with silence seems to be the logical move to keep my cards close to my chest.

He slides off the half wall, not unlike a panther bored of chasing small game. "Perhaps you mean he never _showed_ he was angry. There is quite a measureable difference."

"Yeah, he was pretty introverted." The chair creaks, a sound of protest against my white-knuckle grip.

"But even an introvert needs to vent, surely?" Zexion conjures up a book and nudges the spine with his palm. It falls open, right in the middle, and Zexion's visible eye switches between reading the text and studying me, as if somewhere on those pages is the very definition of me. "Saix is an amnesiac by disassociation, and you're a pretender with corrupt memories, living a life of denial. One could argue that with such disrupted witnesses, the story of your past has dissolved. I'm not the Organisation's doctor," he continues idly. "Surgery just happens to be a field I'm naturally proficient in. I actually serve as the analyst. I dissect facts, figures, people, places; I break down the oceans of data to droplets of potent, useable information."

I rest my chin on my folded arms, which dig into the chair's backrest. "Has anyone ever told you you're really creepy?"

Zexion doesn't react at all, which rather cements what I've just said. "My point, Axel, is that while you endeavour to sweep your mistakes away and stretch a blindfold over Saix, you cannot trick me. In fact, out of the three of us, I have the fullest, most comprehensive and accurate knowledge of your past, and ironically, I'm supposed to be an illusionist."

He's just playing games, the same way Lexaeus feigns uppercuts and goes for my ribcage instead, the same way Xigbar uses insults to fish for a reaction. Shit, I _know_ he's playing games and yet, all I need to do is look at him and poison taints my throat. I feel my deck of carefully preserved secrets crumble at my feet, like a castle of sand welcoming the sea.

Does he really know me? Has he any idea what I've done, or is he just bluffing?

"You're so young," Zexion says abruptly. "You were how old? Twenty?"

My hairs stand on end. It is a particular kind of grating when a haughty snake hidden in a twelve year old remarks on _your_ immaturity. Suddenly, I ask myself why I am tolerating this, when there is such an easy way to finish off the stare that unravels me.

I leap out my seat with such force, it topples over. I call up fire, grinning at the way it skates across my skin like armour. Zexion might be quick with words, but physically he is as slow as a glacier. I reach him in the blink of an eye, wrap my fingers round his tiny, veiny throat and shove him head first against the window.

"Axel!" Xaldin berates over the sound of shattering glass and dispositions.

Together, we topple over the half wall, falling in the rain of glittering fragments. You, Vexen and Lexaeus jump aside. We crash, grunt, struggle, grapple at one another's weaknesses. I squeeze his throat, dig into his skin. Zexion uses what little breath he has to crease up into a derisive laugh.

"You still fit my data," he pants, grinning beneath his slate fringe. "A brawler who beats down whatever he feels threatened by."

I snarl, and a whirring chakram grinds against the cold tiles. I bring it down – hard and desperate – on that smirking face. I want to tear his face apart until it is nothing but a sticky red mess that protects me from that gaze, but my arm freezes in someone's painful grip. Zexion is still laughing, relaxing in gratifying pain as the chakram just manages to scrape his eyelid.

There is a nod out the corner of my eye – the Superior, I make out, and he's here with everyone else – and then, Lexaeus delivers a swift, brutal punishment. He throws me, back up the way I fell. The white walls soar past, as blank as the stares that watch me go, and I wait for impact, to hit the stone half wall and break my back.

It never comes. Instead, I collide with something softer, sturdier. My knees buckle. Blue hair slinks over my shoulder as your arms wrap around me. I groan and with shaking hands, I dust off the shards of glass down my front. You feel impossibly strong against my back. There isn't the single indication you are hurt at all; there isn't a single explanation to cover how you could run as fast as I was thrown. It's only in the wake of the scuffle that I entertain the possibility, in a bit of a daze, you might be far stronger than I am.

You help me up, your slight smile and subtle gaze a stark contrast to the scar that mars your face. From that viewing platform, we glance back at the Organisation together.

Vexen taps at his clipboard. "Perhaps I should log that," he says after a moment. "Number Seven. Surprisingly mobile and responsive."

The Superior favours Xigbar with a half smile and murmurs something, and then he portals away with a shake of his head, as if this sort of conflict is utterly normal.

"What did he say to you?" You absently wipe some blood off your face, where a slice of glass must have just nipped you.

"Nothing." I glare at Zexion who, with the help of Lexaeus and Xaldin, is now resetting his dislocated shoulders. "He's just got a face I want to punch. More importantly, you got here quick. What…what was that?"

You shrug, losing a hand in your hair. "It was an unconscious move," you explain. Your eyes rest on Vexen, at the plethora of equipment behind him, all there to deconstruct you. I hold my tongue, bite down on the secret, that someone's unconscious can easily be programmed at an early age.


	11. Isa / Saix: Paper Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains scenes of discrimination, bullying and sexual assault, which may be triggering and/or upsetting to some. The fic as a whole is rated a high T (and M rated for later chapters) for language, violence, sex and disturbing themes. Please only proceed if you are okay with this.

______________________________________________

**ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _five years before death_ -

______________________________________________

 

If I didn't have osteogenesis imperfecta, my father wouldn't have felt so threatened by the weight of responsibility, that he'd pack up and leave. If my father had stayed, my mother's life wouldn't have been all about me. If my mother hadn't been afraid to watch me get hurt, I would have ventured out more. And if I had ventured out more, I wouldn't be so shy.

If I wasn't shy, I might have had more friends than I could count. If I had friends, I would leave my stuff round their houses, and not at school. If I had lots of friends my age, and not sympathetic teachers just doing their job, I'd have a plethora of hobbies, ones that had teams and hugs and keeping score. If I had had hobbies like that, I wouldn't have reclusive interests like astrology. If I didn't like astrology, I wouldn't care for star charts.

And if I didn't care so much about star charts, that incident would never have happened.

**-x-**

Thanks to you, bullying me became our year's favourite pastime. Whenever classmates grew bored of mocking my bone disease, they opted to laugh at my orientation instead, like the constant flipping of a pillow to always have a cold side.

A year dragged by, and I turned eighteen with no ambition or career prospects. Despite the taunts screaming that I be otherwise, I was still disabled, still gay. I had a grand total of one friend and knew more about the librarian's dead relatives than I did the social ins and outs of RadiantGarden. The days were static and horrifically regular. I woke up, went to school, hated school, went home, hated home, and then I slept and dreamt of the horrors of tomorrow.

Our school threw an end of year festival, to mark the start of summer and send off the graduating students. Both Megan and I pleaded sickness on our last day. School was bad enough on normal days; we were not at all keen to turn up on the occasions students were encouraged to run amok and cause trouble. Our absence meant we were not able to collect our graduation certificates from the ceremony.

"Don't worry, I'll get them," I told Megan in our usual café hangout. (It was the only place in RadiantGarden which refused students if there were more than two in the group, so it was a perfect sanctuary.) "I left my charts back in the lab anyway."

I trudged to school for the last time, deliberately choosing the residential avenues and avoiding the busy promenade. All I managed to see of the end of year festival was the aftershock. I arrived at the school gates to see shrivelled skins of balloons and paper aeroplanes crashed on the grounds.  Colourful streamers were caught on the railings, like ribbons snatched up in a demon's claw. There was laughing and cheerful shouting to music, but they sounded distant and almost imaginary in their foreign relation to me.

A group of six guarded the gates, two with cigarettes, one girl showing off her midriff to her boyfriend, two guys with a can of beer. I recognised one of them as my classmate, Leroy. Of course, I used the term 'mate' loosely. I ducked my chin into my collar and walked as fast as I could past them, making a beeline for the headmaster's office. Their conversation lulled for a moment as they spotted me. As I yanked open the door, I saw them in the reflection, sliding off the wall and kicking their beer cans aside.

I would have been safe in the headmaster's office, but I couldn't stay there forever. I had to collect my star charts and get back home as quickly as possible. After obtaining our graduation certificates, I followed the ramp up and round to the science corridor, constantly checking behind me.

Leroy seemingly came out of nowhere – or perhaps he had known all along I was here for my charts. One minute, I was at the classroom door; the next, the corridor swung upside down and I began to choke on the tight collar of my sweater.

"Isa, wait up," said Leroy. "Don't run, you're here just in time."

The material of my sweater screeched in protest at the roughness of his grip. There were hands – all over me, it felt like – and then my back smacked against the wall. This was the first time any bullying had ever turned physical – the fear of paying the medical bill for OI had once been enough to protect me. My head spun with panicked thoughts, each one more frightening than the next.

"We're a few notes short of getting another round of beer." Leroy nodded to one of his friends. "Maybe you can help us."

 _My wallet's in my left pocket_ , I tried to say, but throttled gasps were all that were coming out of me. I wasn't even sure if I was able to breathe. _Take it and go._

More hands. They were hot, invading. There was definitely one at my neck, paralysing the rest of me into submission.

Leroy tugged at my jacket roughly. I closed my eyes in case they betrayed the anxiety, exhilaration and the sheer disgust of – for the first time – being this close to someone. Leroy's breath crawled along my neck as he searched my pockets. Eventually, he found what he was looking for.

"No good," said Leroy. He sounded a mile away, although I could smell fresh mint with every syllable. I thought I was going to be sick. "You can't even buy an apple with this. I guess it doesn't pay to be a fag."

Some laughs. I closed my eyes, wrapped myself up in the dark and prayed for it all to be over. I tasted copper in my mouth; something stung, but I couldn't work out where I was hurting. Then, something cold washed over my legs. Just air. I toppled over, then I was caught, supported by their snickers and taunts. I felt fabric rushing past my knees, and my eyes flew open. In the tiniest opening of clarity, I grabbed the waistband of my underwear before they went as well.

I struggled and lost. I shattered as the cool air burned me.

_Stop it._

"Oh, gross, Leroy," shrieked a girl. A scuffle, and she stammered, "I don't want to look, it's disgusting."

She did more than look. She was protesting over the taunts and the laughs, but her hand was guided by something forceful, a derisive hiss telling her what to do. I felt long nails, a long and suffocating squeeze between my legs.

"You're supposed to be enjoying that, fag."

_I'd rather my bones were breaking._

A slap. The girl might have been crying. "You bastard, I can't believe you made me do that…!"

I felt blindly for my underwear. I found Leroy's hand instead. "Too right," he breathed. The waistband pinged against my flesh. "That's not going to impress any girl _or_ guy. I'd keep it covered up too."

I crumbled, the way a butterfly tore up like paper before it could fly beyond its chrysalis. I looked up to see a fist. A nose wasn't made from bone – even Leroy knew that. I barely had time to blink.

I hit the floor, warm in the afternoon light of the corridor.

The shadows cleared, the laughter ebbed. My money was gone; so were my shoes and trousers. Blood was streaming from my nose and running down my chin, but the route to the classroom had opened up. I scrabbled towards the door.

Star charts. This would all be worth it if I got my star charts.

**-x-**

I woke up locked in a cubicle. I couldn't remember how I got there. My legs quaked in the cold and my head ached with the hammer swings of _fag_ , _gross_ , _disgusting_. I wanted to pretend this had all happened to someone else, but it hadn't. This was my reality now.

I tried being sick; nothing would come out. I thought about crying, but I couldn't feel my face. So I pulled down the toilet lid, sat on it and stared at the space between my socks. I seemed to think that if I sat here long enough, waited long enough, I'd somehow heal, and opening that door might actually be a possibility again.

There was a knock. I fell out of my broken daze to be greeted by clear sounds of a tap running and a soap bar skidding along the grimy tiles. I wasn't alone. I kept still. I had a tissue to my face to stem the nosebleed and mask my breaths. A few seconds passed, and then there was the knock again.

"Hey, are you all right?" It was you. I knew it was you the moment you had knocked. "It's just you've been in there a while."

I covered my mouth to stay silent. My cheeks were soaking wet; I had been crying all along. I watched, fighting my blurred vision, as your shadow moved from left to right, a searchlight skimming the bottom of the door. "There's no point in not saying anything," you said, "I kinda know you're there because your bag strap's sticking out."

You sounded older, gentler. I swallowed. I wanted to call out to you, but if you knew it was me behind the door, would you stay?

"Open up, it's all right. I'll help you." You knocked again. "I'm Lea, by the way."

_I know. That's why my heart's racing._

"Look, it isn't worth hiding in there. They don't have a thing on you. Trust me, I know how they work. I've tried to be like them because I thought it'd be cool. The fact is, though, they're just ghosts. They can't see anything when they look at themselves and the only splash of colour they get is when they make their lives all about you. It's selfish, but it's their way of trying to be special like you."

I sniffed, coughing on the taste of blood.

"In most cases, anyway," you continued. "Apparently, they also don't like it if someone's father manages to prosecute _their_ father and put them in jail. My mum's going to kill me when she sees what they've done to my books. They're supposed to be passed down to Elenar for her final year but there's barely ten pages between them now." You switched off the taps. "And check out my sports kit. They peed all over it like dogs."

You snickered at your own remark. I couldn't understand from where in the wake of such an ordeal, you could pull out a laugh.

"Hey, want me to walk you home?" You were reaching out, trying phrase after phrase to make a friend. You didn't seem to care whom you were talking to, so long as they emerged liking you. I could understand that desperation, that attempt to find anything, no matter how sharp, to grab onto in the wake of a storm.

I stood up, pressed my forehead against the cool surface of the door. Finally, I let my voice betray me. "It's me." There was the sound of rustling, and I immediately visualised you leaving. "A-are you still there?"

A few seconds passed, and then you cleared your throat. "…I'm here. Are you all right? Are you hurt?" Your shadow skirted the floor and I felt the door thud with your weight. I wondered if your forehead was resting close to mine.

"Isa, are you hurt?" you said again.

I couldn't really tell. From here, staring down at myself, I looked fine, except for the bloodstains on my hands. "It's just a nosebleed."

You knocked on the door. "Well, open up. I can't talk to you if you're bleeding to death on the other side."

I nearly smiled. I forgot about the past year, forgot we had never made the mistake of going our separate ways, forgot the singe of humiliation. It was that easy to slip back into my favourite routine. Then, I glanced down at my thin and pasty legs, and remembered everything. "I can't," I managed. "I…I haven't got trousers."

You exhaled. There was more scuffling. A minute later, something slung over the top of the door. "Don't worry, they didn't pee on it," you clarified. "It's a bit muddy, but otherwise it's okay."

Carefully, I took your capris. "…Thank you." They felt warm and were a bit too short for me. I nearly fell over in my hurry to get them on.

"Actually, I'm glad you're here," you said. "I've wanted to talk to you. I want you to know that I'm sorry. You were completely right to cut me off after what I did last year. Sorry I'm such a bad friend."

My hand fiddled on the lock. I wanted to see you, to see if this apology was just words etched on the face of a liar, but I had had enough of reality. I wanted something good to think about, even if it was just a lie.

"I regretted it as soon as I said it, Isa, but you did the right thing and pushed me out. I did what you've always suggested and thought seriously." You laughed nervously and your knuckles brushed the door. "You…you still there, Isa?"

How could I not be?

"…It's weird, talking to a door. But I won't force you out," you amended quickly. "Take your time, okay?"

I was starting to wonder if this was really you. The old you would have ran into the next cubicle and stood on the toilet to peer over. You used to push on ahead and expect me to fall in line. It was the main reason why I pulled away when you kissed me. You never thought things through; you made decisions for others because you honestly believed it was a good trait. You were the kind of person who picked up a bird and threw it if it wasn't flying fast enough; you weren't the person standing out there.

"You've changed a bit," I muttered.

"I haven't changed, I've grown up," you said. "My best friend dropped me for a reason and I'm a fast learner. I actually made up my mind about the future. I'm starting as an office junior at the chambers next month. I'm not becoming an athlete."

"So you're going to follow your dad after all."

"Well, not quite." I knew you were grinning. "I'm training to become a defence lawyer, not a prosecutor. Technically, I'm listening to my dad, but I've got my own ambitions there too. I want to be the voice for the accused."

I looked up from my folded arms. I had a thought, a quick image, of a courtroom and the lonely box for the defendant. Someone could force me in there and accuse me of so many things – shy, gay, disabled, _dirty_ – but perhaps these indecencies weren't so indecent at all, if someone could stand up and tell me so.

"What are you up to these days?" you asked. "Are you going to take up astrology professionally?"

My breath hitched in my throat. I glanced down at my bag. I convulsed at the sight of the rolls of paper. "Isa?"

Before I knew it, staying standing seemed to be the hardest thing to do. I tried to form a coherent sentence, but my words clogged up behind barbed recollections instead.

"Isa," you said. The urgency in your voice jolted me awake again. You rapped the door with your knuckles; it sounded like a hammer against my ears. If there wasn't a barrier between us, you probably would have been grabbing my forearm. I used to hate it when you touched me. It used to burn and ache, and I would bite the inside of my mouth and think about that instead.

Quickly, while I could still think, I slid the latch across. I looked round, almost afraid of what I'd see. Across the way, you were doing the same. You had your head tilted and you were squinting a bit. You were also missing your trousers, and you now stood – entirely unbothered – in a pair of green shorts that clashed tremendously with your hair.

You took one look at me, and you knew.

I covered my mouth with the base of my palm, as if that would heal me somehow, as if that would stop my screaming.

I felt myself slipping, cowering in fear of the bitter present and pretending I was still twelve. _It was more than a nosebleed. Help me._

I handed myself over – small pieces, papery bits of a soul that needed some place safe – and like the wish jar you once was, you opened your arms and caught the scattered fragments.

 

 

 

  **______________________________________________**

**SAÏX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

\- _forty-three days after birth_ –

 ___________________________________________________

 

This is the fact:

The world crumbled because I didn't want that sky any more.

This is the secret:

I was glad for it.

**-x-**

A dull thud – of my own body toppling to the side and hitting the floor – breaks me from sleep. It's dark and muggy, as though a thick black fog has been compressed into an old box. In that dazed moment, slipping back into the shoes of the conscious, I have an odd feeling, an utter conviction that I'm holding something in my arms. It's warm, and alive, and it's shaking.

But when I squeeze into that embrace, there's nothing there.

I keep still on the floor and hold my breath, and it's silent and isolated. There isn't the slightest trace of a sound, not even a footfall or a whisper, until I start to move.

" _He's awake_."

Zexion's voice is a faint vibration that hits the edge of my prison. He's not here – or else I'd have heard his breaths – so he's outside, looking in. I still can't see anything. Slowly, I push my hands to the wall and edge round. I shuffle, search for the groove of a door. When I find it, it doesn't budge against my efforts to push, pull or slide it.

" _Sir_?" I hear Zexion say.

There is a pause of idle thought. " _Take Xaldin with you_ ," says the Superior. " _Saïx is fast_."

I tilt my head in the direction of their voices, battling the dark and pretending I can see straight through to them. Footsteps circle the far end of the room to the door, and with a low hiss, it slides open.

Gradually, light invades the space, like a sun creeping up in the morning. Zexion keeps everything low, from these lights to his voice. He shuts the door, nods in greeting.

"You're in an observation cell, Saïx," Zexion begins. Xaldin rests the sole of one boot on the wall and leans back, arms folded. Though seemingly casual, Xaldin is tense, as if he is anticipating a fight.

"Why am I in here?"

"As a safety precaution. Don't be alarmed, everyone is all right." Zexion waves a hand to dissuade my apparent concern for the Organisation's wellbeing. "I require a few minutes of your attention. Please do your best to understand. I rather dislike having to repeat myself."

I fall against the wall and fold my arms to create a barrier between us.

"The Organisation has been presented with an unforeseen issue." Zexion smiles, sensing some humour to the statement that otherwise eludes me. "You are, of course, a dissociative amnesiac. So far, Vexen and I have been able to surmise that this is a defensive mechanism kicked in by Isa to protect you from the trauma of your past. The amnesia has spread. You may have noticed."

There are murmurs from outside, but each voice drowns out the other in a clamour to be heard. I detect Vexen's caustic outburst, Lexaeus' low murmur and Xigbar laughing.

"There are blanks in my memory," I admit. "I put it down to the mundane routines of this Castle affecting me."

Zexion challenges me with a flat look of his own. "Yes, it must be frustrating to serve little more purpose than a Dusk in within these walls."

" _Zexion needs to stop teasing him,_ " says Vexen.

"The blanks in your recent memory precede and cover a series of uncharacteristic outbursts," Zexion says. "Your friend Axel has aptly called it _going berserk_."

"Berserk?"

"Yes. Since it has taken time to surface, we assume this state is your Nobody form settling into its raw state. Saïx is emerging—"

" _—and he ain't pretty_ ," says Xigbar.

"—and Isa is extending his efforts to protect you by erasing every occurrence of _berserk_. Do you understand so far?"

"…I think so," I manage, neglecting to tell Zexion I can't even get past the first hurdle of treating Isa as though he isn't me. "I apparently suffer from random occurrences of rage."

"They're not random," Xaldin cuts in, speaking for the first time. "Something provokes you. The procurement of new memories, perhaps. Your diary indicates you are remembering more and more of your past. Isa is getting weaker; so is the amnesia. The raw state of your Nobody form is settling in; _berserk_ is most likely your new way of coping with trauma."

"I don't mean to do it," I argue, sensing the displeasure in Xaldin's voice.

"We know that. Equally, we know it would be insensible to let it slide." Zexion glances up at the window. Each time he does, I shiver at the thought of other eyes on my back, weighing me up like an animal at the market. "You're in a precarious position, Saïx. You can't control yourself, nor can you summon a weapon or tap into an element. Your river of resourcefulness is running dry. You need to curb your rage."

I stare at him.

"Unless you can control this _berserk_ mode, you will be a machine beyond repair. The Superior will order your execution."

"I don't understand," I say quickly, and my breath catches in my throat at the thought of execution, at the thought of dying. "How am I supposed to control something I never remember doing?"

Zexion cracks a wide smile, the sort that befits a man who convinces a fish that it's free, but holds a stretch of net behind it the whole time. "Well, Saïx, that's what I'm here for."

"You're going to help me?"

"Is that so surprising?" Somehow, Zexion's malicious features twist themselves into a rather pleasant expression. "Execution is the logical choice, but that doesn't automatically make it the Organisation's first choice. No, we would be delighted to keep someone of your level within our ranks. As such, with your consent, we'd like to study _berserk_. If we can learn its nature, we can reroute it into becoming something of your conscious will."

My hand jumps to my hair. "I can reroute it, but it affects the entire length of the code. You're not just tacking on another link to the chain; you're visibly disrupting it, like even the slightest of movements prompting ripples."

Zexion blinks. He is not nearly as confused as I am. "I beg your pardon?"

"…Leave it there and I'll have it done in three days," I finish quickly. There is an awkward silence. Xaldin appears to be mouthing something at the ceiling. "Sorry. I…I don't know why I said that."

" _Dude's a nutter_ ," says Xigbar.

"As I was saying," Zexion continues, catching himself before his sneer gets any further than a thin frown, "with your consent, continued research on _berserk_ will hopefully give us enough of an understanding to control it." He rubs his neck. It's impressive how even the slightest gestures from Zexion reek of arrogance and condescension. "What's the phrase children use?" he asks Xaldin lightly. He turns back without waiting for a response. "Oh. _Are you game_? That was it."

I bristle at such patronising words, but this frustration is short-lived when I consider what Zexion is offering. The truth is, I don't remember dying, so it frightens me more than it would you. I like to think there is some semblance and depth to me, that makes it worth hanging onto my odd existence.

So I nod my consent.

"Excellent." Zexion smiles.

My days at the Castle have been static, boring. I remember and write, and the others study my work and shake their heads at its uselessness. Researching _berserk_ , in my mind, is probably just more writing, more attempts to cut off Isa and regain my memories.

I don't think for a minute that by nodding, I have just given Xaldin confirmation to try and kill me.

I hear him before I see him move. There's a rush of fabric, and his arms call up a whirlwind that tears at his coat. I blink, and he's darted from one end of the room to land inches in front of me. I manage to throw up an arm to block an attack, but Xaldin aims for my exposed ribs instead.

I fly backwards, crash on the floor. The back of my head slams against the wall.

" _Oy! You bastards, you said you were going to help him!_ " It's your voice – you've been there the whole time – and the resulting thuds on the other side of the glass surely suggest you are lashing out at someone.

" _Zexion has unorthodox but effective methods. Sit back down._ " That's Lexaeus' voice.

I shunt my attention back to Xaldin, who is now barraging me with lances. For every lunge he makes, I leap backwards to avoid the blow. We're so close together, his braids keep whipping my face.

"Xaldin, you're not _trying_ ," Zexion calls over the grunts of struggle. He weaves in and out of our fight, hands in his pockets. I shoot Zexion a glare – if only he would desist the arrogance, even for a minute – and doing so leaves me open.

Xaldin punches me. There's no time to get up as he delivers a swift kick to the side of my head. He throws a lance and it pierces my sleeve to pin me against the wall. Then comes another, narrowly missing my cheek and catching my hood. He aims a third, and by this point I realise I have such limited movements that I can't be an easier target. The lance zeroes in on my neck, desperate to injure, and in a fleeting moment of panic, my instinct kicks in and I lift my arm to defend.

"Oh, well done," Zexion says brightly. I catch his reflection in the silvery blade that has abruptly manifested in my hand.

" _Is that berserk_?" asks Vexen.

" _No, that's just him getting pissed_ ," Xigbar replies idly.

I have a split second or two to witness and analyse my weapon, to make a note of its spiked end, bulky weight and powerful swing; then, Xaldin attacks again. He dislodges the lances from the wall and that is all I can see before a sharp wind tears into my eyes.

I swing the bizarre blade, deflecting two stray lances aiming for my eye. Xaldin growls as I push him back, one step at a time. For a second, I think I have him, parrying enough of his attacks to anger him into creating an opening. Then, something rams into my shoulder.

" _Isa_!"

I stagger backwards, gripping my new wound. My boot slips in a growing puddle of blood. Gasping, I look up to see that Xaldin's bleeding too. One of the spikes of my blade has been stained red. I rewind quickly and realise I never heard him cry out attaining an injury.

" _How many times do I have to tell you guys? Isa doesn't respond to violence. He's not built that way. Please, let him go._ "

I, in the meantime, have none of Xaldin's resilience. The stab wound at my shoulder has completely winded me. In an attempt to shake off the resulting agony, I slam my blade against the wall. It crumbles, as glossy stones and frail sand. A spider leg crack runs the length of the wall.

Xigbar whistles. " _Isn't this the strongest room in the Castle? You might want to revisit your building plans, Superior_."

To my annoyance, Xaldin doesn't relent. He aims three lances this time, but I deflect them. One topples towards Zexion, who swats it away as though it's merely a dying moth.

"Oh dear," he remarks. He wrinkles his nose at the bloodied footprints Xaldin and I leave round the room, as if he's just an innocent bystander in all of this. "I'm running out of places to stand."

"What's the point of this?" I demand. I land a punch on Xaldin's chest (which hurts me more than him). He retaliates by lodging a lance between my ribs. "Th-this has nothing to do with _berserk._ "

"I thought I had told you: I don't like repeating myself." Zexion sighs irritably. " _Berserk_ is a defence mechanism. People's defence mechanisms usually kick in when they're being attacked."

There's a subtle knock against the two-way panel. Zexion glances up at it, before favouring me with an unrepentant smile. "Time's up."

**-x-**

In an annoying twist of Castle procedures, Zexion is also responsible for treatment. As such, he ends up patching up the exact wounds he had indirectly caused.

"You're tough," I say politely to Xaldin.

"Of course I am. Every waking hour is spent either meditating to hone my concentration or battling armies of Heartless in merciless conditions. I certainly don't spend my days scrawling in diaries like you." Xaldin thwacks Zexion away as the latter tightens his bandages.

I smile at Xaldin, for his adamant stance reminds me so much of you. He sits on a hospital stool the wrong way round, with a miserable look on his face. Studying him, now freshly aware of just how strong he is, the thought of my own strength occurs to me. I am the no-good Nobody in the Organisation, with a nonexistent element, an unreliable weapon, an incomplete set of memories. I don't train nearly as much as the rest of you and yet, I was able to stab Xaldin twice. I think of the Organisation's response to _berserk_ , how they shut me in a room and planned amongst themselves to come up with ways to collar me.

"I'm too strong."

That's not something Isa would say about himself.

"Yes, you are." Zexion smiles wryly as the door opens and you stick your head round the door. Your face is as red as your hair.

"You little snot," you shout. "You better explain what the hell that 'research' was. Look at what you've done to Isa and Xaldin! They're battered!"

You snatch the roll of gauze from Zexion and pull up a chair. You tend to my injuries instead. "You okay?"

"It's not as bad as it looks, but I too would like to know how that fight contributed to understanding _berserk_ at all."

"Well, it wasn't called," Zexion says. "It appears I may have made a mistake, which is rather new. Even in a fatal attack, all that prompted was the summoning of your weapon. That by itself is a good start, but it isn't the _berserk_ we witnessed. It's triggered by something else, a different form of violence perhaps—"

"I'm not going to sit at a glass window and watch if you try anything like that again." You're speaking to Zexion, but I'm on the receiving end of your glare. Your hand clenches, gripping the base of my thigh as you clean up my shoulder wound.

"You class me as an enemy, Axel, but without my help, the Superior will certainly order Saïx's execution. In any case, I have made two fundamental discoveries, thanks to that tussle." Zexion swivels round on his seat and begins to pack away the first aid kit. "Firstly, Saïx's weapon manifested in his right hand."

"So?" I prompt. "Xigbar could have told you that. He saw my weapon manifest that one mission in the City."

"Isa was left handed." Zexion shrugs. "The whole of your diary is written with a left hand, yet when you have been stripped to rely on instinct, you switch to your right. Secondly, and more importantly: Xaldin, your technique is slipping."

Xaldin's head snaps up, and in admirable, silent fury, he stands up and readies four lances. Just as we're all about to be sucked into an angry whirlwind, Zexion laughs (it's a sound I liken to the haughty squawk of a crow).

"I joke, of course. Secondly, the battle's outcome has set the course clear for my next attempt to provoke _berserk_. Vexen and I have dissected Saïx's diary and taken particular note of the star charts that label up the sky." Zexion tosses my coat at you. You catch it and help me back into it. The thought occurs, but the emotion doesn't stay. _I don't like you touching me_.

"Your diary mentions Mars and Saturn, as well as the concept of a zodiac. Since these can only be seen and understood from a particular point in the universe, this inevitably points to the fact Isa and Lea were residents of Radiant Garden."

You stop running your fingers through my hair. "Are you serious? You do know you could have just _asked_ us?"

Zexion remains impassive, finding more interest in lining up medicine bottles on the shelf. "I recall the last time I tried to converse with you, you threw me out a window and tried to stab my eye. So, no, one cannot just _ask_ someone when they're that irrational. No matter, though." He grins, and I really wish he wouldn't. "The Superior has already confirmed it with me. Since physical trauma has proved ineffectual, emotional trauma is the next step. Tomorrow, I'm taking you back to Radiant Garden." 

  


	12. Lea / Axel: Beggar's Grave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic with the intention of keeping it canon. However, with the release of DDD, there are a few instances in this fic that are now canonically disproved, the biggest of which is Isa and Lea's escape to Traverse Town. Please forgive any inconsistencies and interpret them as artistic licence :)

  
________________________________________

  **LEA, THE BOY WHO'D DISAPPEAR**

\- _five years before death_ -

________________________________________

 

To cope with the loss of you, I underwent a series of radical changes, the way a sea creature might keep mutating to deal with a missing limb. I became a shape shifting beggar, peddling my goods to the rich, trying on personalities and looks as if they were accessories I'd find in my drawer.

I bought a glow-in-the-dark yoyo when I was in Cal's circle of friends so that I could play with them. I fooled around with Adam's group and joined in their practical jokes, from putting soap in the fountain to daring one another to kiss girls. I went to extra science classes when I made friends with Jen. In spring, I drew ink tattoos on my arm to impress Hugo's group, and I even started throwing spitballs at the pretty girls in class, if it meant I stayed on good terms with Leroy.

I pretended I was friends with everyone and worked through the groups, as if I was King Ansem trying to shake hands with all of his citizens. I tried so hard, but I was still the overzealous brat no one really wanted around. By the time I graduated, I had no friends, no happy memories to mark that year, not a sprig of worth to me at all.

All I wanted was for you to forgive me and come back; and when you did, it was the worst I had ever felt all year.

**-x-**

We looked a sorry pair walking back – me without my trousers, you without your shoes. You cried the whole way, but I wasn't sure you even knew you were doing it. I had told you we were going to my house, not yours, but you had barely acknowledged me walking with you, let alone my efforts to hold a conversation. I was glad to some extent, that you were crying. It became the severe image I needed to never forget the consequences of my actions. I couldn't bear your muffled sobs or your struggle to even walk straight, such that all I could think about was a way to make sure you weren't ever hurt by me again.

I could cope with being called names or pantsed or having my family insulted, because I was happy to retaliate. If someone threw a spitball at me, I'd stick my chewing gum on their seat for next class. If someone ran off with my trousers, I'd chase them and punch them for good measure. But if someone did anything like that to you, you didn't respond. You were simply incapable of hurting others and thought everyone else was the same; you were a virgin to just how much cruelty a person could truly harbour.

The fact was, if someone hurt you, I was supposed to be there to take the hit.

You wanted me to help you, I was certain of it. The problem was, I wasn't sure how. I tried jokes, I tried coercing details from you, I even asked for the perpetrators' names so I could hunt them down. Each attempt seemingly made things worse, like slicks of glue damaging the slips of paper I was trying to piece back together.

In the silence that followed us home, I couldn't help but deconstruct the grisly facts. You had gone back for your star charts and six students had followed you – that was all you had confirmed. My mind filled in the gaps. Every time I lingered on what six people were capable of doing to a frightened introvert with a bone disease, I thought I was going to faint. I hated myself even more, for my inability to protect you, my cowardice in running from the truth. I didn't want to know, you clearly didn't want me to know and yet, this bout of silence was destroying you by the second and I knew it.

When we were walking down the promenade, you took a sudden turn off the path and staggered to a nearby bin to throw up. Your mind was constantly taking you back to the incident because nothing was stopping you. I had to jam this horrific loop of memories playing over and over again in your head.

"Hey, it's all right. I'm here now," I murmured, as if that was actually something reassuring. "It's all right, Isa. I'm going to take you back to my house; you can stay over for the night too. Is…is there anything I can do?"

Your hands clamped round the water bottle I had held out for you. "Bin them," you stammered. "Please, bin them."

I glanced back at your schoolbag, which you had thrown aside when running to the bin. "Your charts?"

You nodded and retched again. I retrieved the three rolls from the side pocket and studied the unfurled corner of one of them. Your neat writing embraced the staggered dots of constellations, fondly mapping the sky the way a proud parent would write dates on the back of family photographs. "You spent so much time on them," I said, but at the sight of the bloodstains down another chart, I did what you said and threw them in the bin.

It was when I turned to carry on walking you home, with a casual side glance that surpassed all of my previous scrutiny, that I spotted it. The implications only hit me after I had looked away and suddenly, I thought I was going to be sick too, for centimetres from the bloodstains was the faintest, dirty white smear.

**-x-**

"Lea, where _are_ your trousers?! Please don't tell me you walked home in your underwear," my mum greeted me, forgetting to congratulate me on my graduation. Her face immediately softened however, when I gestured to you and said, "They're on Isa. We got water bombed. School end and that."

"Isa? Oh how lovely, are you two friends again? Is your nose all right? It's rather red." She didn't comment on your equally red eyes.

You smiled a liar's smile and practically melted into my mum's touch as she stroked your hair. "I'm fine, ma'am."

The moment she turned back to making dinner, you adopted a new, damaged expression that made me feel horribly guilty every time it surfaced. As you became reacquainted with my family, you kept doing it, lifting this mask every time someone had their eyes on you. No one could see the creases where your disguise covered your sadness, and I wondered if I was just too good at spotting my own traits, or if you were so traumatised you had perfected this coping method without even knowing it. Only now, when I saw you copying me, did I truly understand how powerless you must have felt on all those occasions I had pretended to be someone I was not.

"Is there any chance I could use your shower?" you said carefully. We had barely set foot in my room before you came out with that coherent, polite sentence that almost made you sound okay again. I leapt at the opportunity to pull you from the edge, back to safety.

"Sure, not a problem! You know where it is. I'll leave out some fresh clothes for you; those capris are a bit dirty."

I ransacked the drawers while you showered, treating the task with guilty enthusiasm. I found a pair of cargos that were too long for me and a black and midnight blue t-shirt that'd look great against your pale skin; to go the extra mile, I added some underwear, a pair of socks and a comb to the pile. For the first time in my life, I folded my clothes neatly. I left them outside the bathroom and went downstairs.

To my dismay, my dad came home early that evening. He shrugged out of his blazer and tossed it at my mum. "Power glitch," he explained gruffly. "The Castle malfunctioned this morning and has been running on a green light all day."

"So?" said Elenar. She was somehow balancing eight lots of plates and cutlery on one hand. "Hasn't the Castle gone green before?"

"Of course it has. The issue with the green light is that it puts the authorities into an alert mode which means nothing gets done. It's hardly worth fretting over." My dad slumped into his seat and bristled impatiently for his dinner. "No matter, it's only when the light goes completely that we start to worry."

We started eating dinner and though you were with us, you didn't speak at all. I had naively hoped you were too hungry to talk, but you were only playing with your food, looping strands of spaghetti round your fork and letting it uncurl, like a child playing with his mother's hair.

My dad, who had never shown an interest in you, made the mistake of trying to rectify this. "So now that you've graduated, what plans or ambitions do you have?"

"Astrology is a pretty dead end interest after all," my eldest sister Lacey remarked rather unhelpfully. You stared into your dinner.

"Isa?" my dad prompted. You jumped, so violently that your fork clattered to the floor and my mum had to reach out to stop your glass from toppling over. Elise giggled into her plastic bowl and most of us laughed it off as something endearing. The only one – save for me – who didn't miss your discomfort was Lara. She pulled a strange expression as you offered a garbled apology and tried to answer my dad. It was almost as though she had only just noticed you were there.

"I'm so sorry," you said, even though my mum had assured you enough times that no harm had been done at all. It was when you added, "I shouldn't have done it, it was disgusting," that I revisited my thoughts and realised you were apologising for something different altogether.

"Hey Dad," said Lara, steering his attention to her. Her face had softened which, for her standards, was something rare. "I graduated today too and haven't got a career lined up. Shouldn't you be interrogating me?" And she smiled at you, a kind gesture that didn't fly off target the way my ones did.

I excused us from the table as soon as I had finished eating. Given that I was still horrified about your ordeal, I only ate a little more than you. You sat down in the living room, looking rather lost, so I reacted before you could slip back into your bad memories. "Hey, I've got someone for you," I said, and I set Bunnymoon on the floor. "She's missed you."

The rabbit did laps around the room and performed the occasional binky. She settled in your arms and finally, though you couldn't quite look at me, you managed a weary smile. "Thanks, Lea."

**-x-**

We used to have an air mattress before Elenar took out her frustrations on it last month using her dressmaker's scissors. As such, I suggested you take my bed and I the sofa downstairs, but you wanted to sleep in our garden tent instead.

It had been up all summer – I suppose I had been hoping someone would set up his telescope there – but only my youngest sister Elise had used it. It was littered with toys a six year old would play with, so I shunted them to one side and fluffed up pillows and blankets.

I could almost pretend we were twelve and ten again, huddled together in the cemetery and waiting for the sunset to give way to the stars. I could remember those days clearly now, having had so much time in their absence to truly realise their value. I loved the way you had fought the wind when spreading out your star maps, the way you berated me if I fell asleep during a meteor shower, the way you scolded your telescope as if it consciously hid the planets from you, the times you read my horoscope in the moonlight and each week, shyly bypassed the paragraph on romantic fortune.

It upset me to think you once had so much life to you and something had snuffed that spark.

It upset me to think you were most likely sleeping in this tent because it felt safe. You weren't at school, the betraying sky was no longer in your sight, you were warm and not alone.

It upset me to think you were trying to hide from the things that hurt, when the biggest source of it was lying across the way, baking in the summer night, shivering in his guilt.

**-x-**

I woke up while it was still dark outside and at first, I thought I had merely fallen into a deeper stage of my nightmare. I had been talking. I could remember my mouth moving, my words semi-conscious and troubled.

"Are you awake?" you whispered.

"…Yeah. I can't sleep."

"I can't either," you said quietly. I couldn't see you at all, yet you seemed better that way, wrapped up in the dark, safe from judging faces. Your voice sounded close, though, and there was a steady warmth trailing down my left hand. I stretched my fingers, just an inch. They brushed against your lips. I might have been gently hushing you back to sleep, when all I wanted was for you to speak.

I felt you slide away, shrinking into the blackness in front of me. "Can I tell you something?"

My fingers curled round an empty space, the same way I had often reached out for you today and just met a ghost instead. "You can talk to me about anything, Isa."

"There was a boy in class," you murmured nervously. "You said I liked him."

I shivered a little at the recollection. I knew more about Myde than you would ever have assumed. My jealousy had been sated by studying the boy of your affections, observing his habits and quirks, trying to copy them as though that would make me the better person. "The musician?"

You started to fiddle with the hem of a blanket. It tapped out a tense pattern against my forearm. "I trained myself to look at him, so you wouldn't notice," you said finally.

My stomach began to channel Bunnymoon's earlier outburst, racing and turning and sending me down a spiral of sickening light headedness. "N-notice what?"

"That it was you the whole time. It's…it's always been you."

In that moment, everything you were made perfect sense. Had I been more patient, more understanding, I would have worked it all out. You shied away from my touch not because you didn't like it, but because it did other uncontrollable things. You didn't want me to rush in and change our relationship because you _knew_. You knew, that like a card tower in its final steps or a bridge nearly crossed, we had to be slow, patient, careful – because a bold leap would simply unravel and destroy everything we'd worked for.

You had pushed me away _because_ you wanted me.

"So…So I ruined it," I managed.

"You did," you said, and your next words caught in your throat. "But Lea, I think you're the only one who can fix it too."

I didn't know how. My illusionist's box of tricks had landed empty in the wake of your confession. I used to be able to do it, once. Right from the moment I met you, I could take lists of your problems, fold them into birds and send them away. I could shape your world into something beautiful, something you deserved, something that reflected everything you were to me and yet, in the most crucial of moments, I couldn't remember how to do it. "I can't," I admitted. "I don't even know where to start. I've made a mess of everything."

You shifted. "Kiss me?" you whispered, a tentative suggestion that rang round the tent.

I wasn't sure if I should, regardless of how much the idea thrilled me. It seemed an odd thing for you to request so soon after your ordeal. You were confused and grappling for some form of reassurance. "…I can't see you," I reasoned lamely.

"Th-then reach out for me."

I cleared my throat, collected myself, tried to understand why after all I had done, you could still want me. And to quell that concern, I tried to also accept it didn't matter. You needed help; apparently only I could give that.

I sat up on one elbow and pushed myself along the tent to your side. Your fingers found the nape of my neck; I found the sharp beginning of your sternum. I was a little nervous. This wasn't the impulsive, destructive kiss like before; this was supposed to heal you – so I started at your heart, where it was damaged the most.

"Are you sure you want me to?"

I felt you nod against my forearm.

I tugged down the collar of your vest and pushed my lips to the thin crests of your ribs. You lay still, fingers idly burying themselves in my hair, but your heart was hammering against my hand and your chest rose and fell in panicked, anxious breaths. I couldn't help but think you were absolutely terrified, as though you were expecting me to stab you at any point.

Still, I continued, and I traced your collarbone with my mouth, then your long neck, the sharp but elegant curve of your jaw, the slight dimple in your left cheek, and then my lips brushed against yours. I wanted to trace more of you, to continue drawing a picture of you in the dark through touch alone, but you sat up on your elbows into a quick, hesitant kiss. You whispered an apology as though you had just done something out of line. "I'm not good," you admitted.

"That's all right, I can show you," I murmured back. I encouraged you to sit up with me, so that our legs jutted out and our bodies twisted in, like the entwined fish of Pisces I had once seen illustrated in your magazines. I kissed you some more, just small and light ones that, once you were comfortable, deepened into the kinds of ones I only feverishly dreamt about.

"Can teach you a bit of astrology too, if you like," I muttered between breaths and kisses. "For example, did you know that Taurus and Virgo are very compatible signs?"

"Yes," you said breathlessly. Your arms looped round my shoulders and, temporarily distracted by the smell of orange blossom, I wound up ducking my head in the crook of your neck and trying the more adventurous kisses.

"Lea?" you murmured, your chin resting on my shoulder to glance out the small window of the tent. Your arms were shaking, channelling that fear I had picked up on earlier, convinced my arms would crush you.

"Mm?"

Your eyelashes fluttered against my jaw and your voice hitched in your throat. "I still can't sleep."

I couldn't imagine what waited for you behind closed lids, if my own nightmares were this unsettling. I lay you back down, your head in the bend of my arm. "Try to sleep," I murmured. "I'll stay awake until you do." I wetted my lips and tucked you under my chin, sorting through my mind for things that'd filter the nightmares away, if only for tonight.

"If a javelin breaks while being thrown or in the air, the throw still counts. A javelin's light, so people often make the mistake of thinking a simple throw will do it." Your left hand grazed my ribs and then rested comfortably there; I carried on, emptying out the useless facts of a child's dream in time with your slowing breaths. "You use your whole body to throw. Strength doesn't come from the arm, it's right from the balls of your feet, your legs, your back. It's a deceiving sport."

I wrapped an arm round you and held you tight. "Sometimes, it's the lightest things that are the hardest to carry."

 

 

 

________________________________________

**AXEL, THE FLURRY OF DANCING FLAMES**

 – _forty-four days after birth_ –

 ________________________________________

 

After the latest appearance of _berserk_ , you sit at the empty arch of a window frame, shivering in the wind, legs over the edge and hands collecting glass. You're the calm eye of the storm, sat in the middle of the destruction with nothing more than a curious tilt of the head for a response. 

I sit behind you, still within the frame of that broken window. It's black and starless outside and yet it captivates you for hours. I sweep your hair aside and kiss the back of your neck, then across to an ear. Tomorrow, that blank face of yours is going to revisit the past, all for the sake of calling up that unnatural, terrifying state.

_Berserk_.

I fucking hate that word. It's ugly and violent and strange; it's nothing like Isa.

They're trying to break you, but if it's really Radiant Garden we're going to, I will break first.

**-x-**

The night before is a complex spiral that twists two directions. I'm agitated and restless, clawing and biting; you're too calm and relaxed, preferring to trace letters on my back and whisper the words you spell. The prospect of returning to Radiant Garden hovers over me like a parasitic demon and yet, it's a lullaby to you.

I'm fucking agitated. Scared and angry and horrified, and the only thing I can think of that will absolve this primal fear of the past is to take you over and over, until I've reached the same calm shores as you.

It's harder work, sleeping with you. Our bodies have changed as much as our lives have. I need to relearn and redraw the map of this body beneath me; I have to erase the mental marks of bruises and broken bones I once took extra care to memorise. And every time I do this, this necessary rearrangement of everything that made Isa beautiful, it rains somewhere between my ribs.

You wriggle in the sheets like a fish trapped in a net. For every kiss I give you, you try to return it but I shrink back in time. I'm afraid that any light touch from your lips is all it takes to unravel my secrets.

"You don't like it, do you," you murmur of your hair, when I sweep that fucking curtain aside to reach your neck. I silence you by thrusting hard, setting a frantic pace that hitches your breath and makes you squeeze your thighs against my sides. Your hands scrabble for the back of my neck, but I limit those too, taking each wrist and placing it either side of your head. Your arms bend in graceful angles, like the snapped wings of a bird.

"Keep them there," I instruct. You nod, and since we now only connect at the hips, you endeavour to make each thrust count, meeting me each time.

"Lea," you pant, fingers curling and uncurling in frustration at the invisible ties at your wrists. I ignore you, still reaching for the bone-white, fractured and frightened love of my life, still searching for a stronger taste of the past.

"Lea," you say again, touching one of my tattoos and drawing a line to my lips. I want to seize that offending hand and smack it against the headboard, colouring it red, but I shudder involuntarily at the sensation of forgiveness. "So frustrated," you manage after a wince, "aren't you? So angry." There's a smile from behind your other hand, which rests across your mouth palm up. It's a light smile, a virgin of criminal beauty with all the aces in his hand.

"It's all right, you know," you say, punctured by small gasps. "You're allowed to be frightened as well."

And though I power into you with such force you choke out a rattled scream and writhe in the relentless pain, you still say those words I dread but so need to hear.

_It's okay to be weak, too._

**-x-**

All Zexion needs to complete his look is the skeletal hands of Death coming to collect his fees. He stands at the smoky gateway to Radiant Garden, slightly hunched, tucked into his hooded coat and smiling from under its shadow. He reminds me of an old picture book Yuffie used to be scared of but wanted to read, filled with double-spread illustrations of eerie swamps, gnarled moving trees, three-legged cats and cackling demons that haunted every page.

"Don't look so frightened, Axel; this is not a compulsory task for you," he greets languidly, and he holds up small hand to extinguish my fiery response. "I know, I know, wherever Saix goes, you go."

"Can you blame Eight for his worry, though?" Xigbar slings an arm over my shoulder and shakes his head at Zexion. "I mean, you're taking the precious and fragile Saix to be emotionally battered, which is no easy experience for anyone, let alone a Nobody as young as him."

"Please, you phrase it as though I am the one traumatising him," Zexion replies, delivering a swift smile that disconcerts more than comforts. "Radiant Garden and Saix himself will be the determiners of that, not me. I'm merely doing what I'm told and attempting to understand _berserk_."

"And what happens if you turn out to be right and _berserk_ does surface, huh?" I demand, shaking Xigbar off and having half a mind to bury a chakram in him too. "Are you going to resort to this emotional torture each time you want _berserk_ to surface? Because I'm not going to stand for it—"

" _Berserk_ is not mine to utilise," Zexion answers with a shrug. "That remains a privilege to the Superior."

"Oh really." Even I can tell how riled and stupidly petulant I sound, but I can't stop it. "I would have thought Saix had rights to it."

The door to the room swings open and I catch your lazy glance. Xaldin is close behind you, looking annoyed about something.

"So early and you're already angry," you remark. You tuck your hair into your hood and manage a passing look at Zexion and Xigbar. "I'm ready."

"Very good," says Zexion. "Now that we're all here, I will explain our task. Ideally, we would like _berserk_ to surface on the trigger of the distressing past and repressed memories. Saix has a twenty-four hour window. If _berserk_ does surface, Xaldin will be responsible for bringing it under control and preventing any casualties. Axel, your duty will be to eliminate any Heartless that threaten to interfere. The Garden is quite densely populated with the creatures so if need be, I will assist you."

"Have fun, kids!" Xigbar sneers.

Zexion slinks into the dark corridor and Xaldin follows. You slip your hand into mine – because some days in the folds of the past, that was all it took to feel safe again – and then we walk through the corridor.

**-x-**

Here is the story:

There is a dying world and at the centre of it, three frightened boys.

Here is the confession:

I don't regret what I did.

**-x-**

My first thought is, _It's cold_. It's supposed to be, _I'm home_ , and yet there hasn't been a pair of words so difficult to phrase in my mind, let alone believe.

It's a hazy and dark morning. The sun is so caught in the mist, it could nearly pass as the moon. I take my first step, a gravekeeper too used to the tainted earth beneath his feet, and then I look up at the skeleton of the Castle. My boots sink into the ground – there's sand, lots of it – and I can smell salt in the air, as though there are crying ghosts and spirits I can't bring myself to see.

"You must have escaped from this very beach," says Xaldin.

"Yeah." I leave stark boot prints behind me as I let go of your hand. I try to make it look like I'm wandering aimlessly instead of taking the scenic route to a preordained destination.

(Thing is, I've done a whole lot more than escape from this beach.)

The ocean's calm, as bleak and empty as the kingdom that sits in the middle of it. I keep walking, back up the beach where the sand hardens into concrete tiles. Up the grainy steps, the same steps I had carried you down. A short walk along the balcony-like promenade and then I reach the gaping doorway of the beach hut.

The cash register's open but it's on the floor, nestled amongst planks of wood torn from the ceiling. Sun loungers are still stacked in that corner. The sponge cushions have been eaten through. There are still posters on the panelled walls about precautions in water. I cross the room and look out the window, studying that drop from this shop to the concrete start of the beach below.

Fuck, that's a big fall.

"Something here?"

You stand in the doorway, but I can barely look at your shadow. "No, it's empty." I leave the hut, taking you with me.

Of course it's empty.

**-x-**

An hour passes and there's no sign of _berserk_.

Twenty-three hours left in this handcrafted hell.

I'm on the verge of asking Xaldin if he'd like to start a suicide pact.

**-x-**

You trail behind me as though you don't know your way round the Garden. So far, Zexion's clipboard is blank and Xaldin tries to pass the time by cracking his fingers and knuckles.

We walk through Castle Town, where there are no rattling shop bells, no ice cream stands, no voices or footsteps or the smell of fresh pastries and bread; the sun is weak, the trees are dead, the fountains can't sing, there are no reflections in the windows. There's no sound of life at all.

"Perhaps we're not revisiting the places that matter," Zexion says a way into the cutting silence.

"I'm not taking him anywhere that will traumatise him," I return flatly.

"I don't think the Garden's doing it," you admit. You sit down on the worn edge of a stone wall, blowing upwards and disturbing your hair. "I don't connect with the place. My memories are incomplete."

"That has nothing to do with your subconscious," Zexion argues. "A person can react to a trigger word or picture without having any knowledge of why. It's something you shouldn't be able to control and as such, you're executing it now. This _is_ your subconscious reaction."

"And it's not exactly _berserk_ , is it," remarks Xaldin. "I reckon you've made a cock up somewhere in your research, Zexion."

"I can't make two mistakes in a row, it's not possible." Zexion whacks his clipboard against his hand a few times, starting to behave his age. "If _berserk_ isn't a defence mechanism, what on earth is it?"

**-x-**

You weren't joking when you said you don't feel connected to Radiant Garden. You can walk the kingdom-turned-graveyard with little more than a curious expression, while I struggle down the narrow streets and subconsciously spot the missing lampposts, shop signs and flowerboxes.

Zexion doesn't know why your subconscious isn't disturbed. Xaldin doesn't understand either, and neither do you.

I'm certain it occurs to all three of you to ask me – because as your keeper, I stand in front of all your secrets – but for the most part, I'm just ignored. The only times I'm remembered is when a Heartless strikes and I disrupt the silence with the rumble of a chakram.

"Twenty hours," says Zexion, when Xaldin asks how long we have left. It's difficult to decide who is more frustrated.

"Twenty hours!" Xaldin repeats, and he throws a furious glance at anyone who will receive it.

"Don't look at me, I didn't decide it, the Superior did." Zexion shakes his clipboard, apparently convinced he can reshuffle the words and make it say we can all go home now.

"I'm sorry." You sit on the bend of a kerb and bury one hand in your hair. "I would make these hours more interesting if I could."

"Can't you just tell us where we're going wrong?" Xaldin fires at me. I open my mouth to shoot back an impatient answer of my own, but Zexion gets there first.

"No, we can't allow that. Having Axel blurt out their past would be akin to swinging Lexaeus' tomahawk against Saix's delicate memory, which is hardly a recommended move if we have any value for it. Perhaps more to the point, Axel has little inclination to assist."

"I'm glad that's been established," I return easily.

"I'm not delicate, by the way," you say from behind me. You seem happy to let the matter go once Zexion backtracks idly and concedes with _brittle_ instead.

I, on the other hand, struggle a bit more. I remain tight-lipped and search for a sanctuary teasing Heartless. There's something just millimetres from escaping my lips, an admittance more than a concern: that you really aren't delicate – and Isa always was. Emotionally, physically, every single mannerism. You used to sit in front of CLAYmore – hours on end – and all we could comment on was not your work but the way you sat, like paper, teetering on the edge of a cliff.

**-x-**

_Pretty thing you have there_.

**-x-**

We chip into the sixth hour, and I finally muster enough courage to venture beyond Castle Town. As it stands, I will need twenty-four years, not hours, to develop the strength and arrogance required to revisit my own home; I settle for yours instead.

The house is just a shell now, a blackened arc with razor edges that used to be walls. There's a staircase, but it doesn't lead to anything; a grey-tiled roof, but it's in pieces on the floor. Most objects have either disappeared or rotted away, and a mixture of old and new wood crackles beneath my feet as I walk through the doorway.

I wonder if it's still here. I mean, of all items to disappear in the walls of time, will that have been one of them, finally leeched dry of its resilience and sturdiness? I'm afraid to disturb the rubble and so I toe it instead, creating pasts for the ashes, stories of what they once were.

Upstairs is downstairs. I look at the murky sky where your room should have been and then follow the remaining wall. Cables, torn and disconnected; books, pageless and stripped of their ending; the rotting skeleton of a three-legged bed; a windowsill with no window; a house without a heart. I comb through the dirt – still with just a foot – and then I recall it had been made from metal. My mum had bought me a thermos because it was cheaper than the sportsman's flask I wanted.

Since the pipes have outlived the storage boxes and children's plates, it has to have lasted in the same way.

Radiant Garden wouldn't screw me over so badly that it'd destroy the one good thing I gave you.

It's got to be here.

 

 

 


	13. Isa / Saix: Twenty-Five to One

 _________________________________________

**ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _five years before death_ -

 __________________________________________

 

The day I graduated, I was assaulted by six students – four boys, two girls. They followed me when I had gone back to school for my star charts and certificate. At first, they wanted money; when it became clear I couldn't offer that to them, the ringleader decided to take my trousers instead.

I was horrified to see my legs on show. I was pale, bony, bruised. I had always made an effort to hide in high collar jumpers and trailing trouser hems, and now there was nothing to protect me from their eyes. A few moments later, they pulled my underwear; then, it was nothing about money, and all about sex. My orientation – a guarded secret until I told the wrong person – was a source of ridicule and derision. One girl was forced to reach between my legs and assault me; as she did, there was warm breath ghosting my left ear, strong hands pressing against my ribs. I shouted for it to stop, before it became too much, before I reacted.

No one listened to me, not even my own body.

When it was over for them, it started for me. I crawled into the classroom for the star charts, shut the door and sank against it. I was hard, hot and bothered, and no matter what I thought or what I felt, it wouldn't go away. I got rid of it in the only way I knew how.

This was the unabridged version of what happened to me that day – the one you never heard.

**-x-**

I didn't tell you, but your sister visited me a few days after it happened. She gave me a few days to accept the fact I was now a victim of sexual abuse, and then she turned up on my doorstep with a colossal revelation: that I was not the only one.

Lara was a lot like you. She was loud, confident and pretty. Everyone didn't just know her; they went out of their way to know her. She was the kind of girl who was the apex of an arrowhead, the one who led while others followed. She could balance her studies and social life to reach an impossible equilibrium with iron weights on one side and feathers on the other.

Despite all this, Lara had been seeing a counsellor for the last two years. You, your sisters and parents all thought she spent her Thursday evenings at an extra art class when really, she was treating the latest wounds her boyfriend had left her with. It was horrific, sitting in my bedroom and listening to her tell me about this. What I had suffered once, she had experienced too many times to count, and by someone she loved at that. She was so familiar with it all, that she only needed one look at my behaviour to see herself reflected back. I, on the other hand, had no idea about her true lifestyle at all.

According to Lara, Liam had had a troubled childhood, and his issues manifested in recognition of this. She was citing reasons, but to me they just sounded like excuses. Lara had visited with the intention of convincing me to seek counselling too. However, every time she asked, I returned the favour and begged her to leave Liam. I judged her, thought her stupid and foolish, until she smiled from beneath the bell of her polka dot umbrella, heading back out into the summer rain. Her eyes glazed over, as though any dissuasion automatically made her shut down. "I can't," she said. "You understand, don't you? When someone's got more flaws and errors to them than you can count, and all it does is make you love them more?"

**-x-**

I avoided venturing out on my own if I could. I lived in fear of it happening all over again. I faced simple, everyday tasks – like buying milk or posting a letter – and each time, I regarded them the way a plank of rotting driftwood might regard his impossible task of surfing across the sea.

I was overwhelmed. A two minute incident had submerged my world and now every one of my waking hours was a fight to stay afloat. I was kicking and writhing to keep the air reaching my lungs, and for every second that passed, the black ink below began to seem a shade kinder.

You started work as an office junior, and though you deeply resented because it cut into the time you could have spent with me, this was the push out of the water I needed. In order to climb out of the darkness, I was convinced all I needed was a purpose too.

One afternoon, I walked across town and sat on a bench in the Castle Gardens' plaza. I had taken a conservative route, away from teenagers' local haunts and well within sight of adults doing their grocery shopping. There were a few people at the plaza, but they certainly didn't linger the way I did. I wasted an hour, cross-legged on that bench, staring across the stretch of concrete at the orange flier in _Highwind Connections_ ' window.

 _Highwind Connections_ was a large shop that backed onto a private field near the Castle. I had been drawn to it, and the day before, I had studied the job advertisement they had pinned up. Its window display left a lot to be desired, with only two of six spotlights working and the shelves caked in dust. The sole item on display was an intricate blueprint. It showed an air shuttle, blown apart to illustrate how it fitted together. I had stood there for a few minutes, admiring the thin lines, neat labels, the clear dedication and respect the creator had for his subject. I had been reminded of my star charts and was enthralled by an invention that actually traversed the sky.

I took a deep breath, crossed the road and went inside. Any attempt I had made to be as subtle and unnoticed as possible was quickly destroyed when the top of the door hit a bell. The shop was more of a hangar, its walls lined with thin ribs of metal that arched over my head. I was excited to see more framed blueprints, but my heart leapt when I saw the very back of the shop. It had a sliding metal door, which had been cranked to the left to welcome the outdoors. There were three or four planes lined up on the green, their side engines casually tossing loose grass into the air.

I edged across the hangar, wondering if I could just sit in the single chair and watch the planes, when a tall figure stomped in from outside with a long stream of curses under his breath.

"Afternoon," he said, his voice harsh. "We're closed."

"I uh…" I trailed off, licked my lips and tried again. "Your sign said you were open…"

The man blinked, one hand roughly mussing up his short blond hair. "Well, I can see it from here. Says closed."

"S-so from outside, it has to read o—"

"Where do you live?" he interrupted. He lifted a toolbox from behind his desk and emptied it on the surface. Anything he didn't want made a swift exit by clattering onto the floor.

"I'm sorry?"

"I was asking where you live," he said.

"S-South Garden."

He stared at me, as though I had said I'd fallen off a comet and happened to land in his shop. "Really," he said. "You've just come here from South Garden?"

"…Well, I waited outside for an hour," I admitted. "I was nervous. Your advert for a tech assistant…I was hoping I could apply for it."

He glanced up from his tools. "Hold that thought, kid." He yelled over his shoulder, "Vin!"

He batted me away and slumped in the wheelie chair, his attention equally distributed between his toolbox and a computer monitor. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, doubly awkward in the empty space with nothing to hide behind.

"…If it's better, I can come back at a convenient time," I suggested in a mutter. "T-tomorrow, maybe?"

The blond snapped his head up. Again, he was wearing that look of disbelief. "Are you serious? There ain't no tomorrow at this rate; where have you been? _Vincent_!" he finished in a bellow, before uttering, "Fuck's sake."

I wasn't quite prepared for Vincent. My courage to keep making headway with my life had been bulldozed by the blond man; I was expecting similar treatment from his colleague. However, when Vincent sidled into the hangar with tangled wires over his shoulder, I took a shuddering breath in discomfort.

He was nothing like you and me, nothing like the scrawny bodies of children we had. He was tall, thin and matured enough to perhaps be someone's father; he had the uncanny ability to look perfect even in a dirty boiler suit with a collection of oil stains down the front. He wiped his cheek with the back of a hand, pushed back his short, black hair, and then threw the wires into a corner. "What is it, Cid?" he said to the blond. "FG is back and said Merlin should be sending you tether coordinates; did you get them? I've just finalised GS 16."

"A problem," Cid said. He nodded to me. "South Garden for you. I don't think he knows what's going on."

Vincent turned round. His eyes were the same colour as the deep red wine my mother used to drink in summer. "Vincent Valentine," he introduced himself. He went to shake my hand, and I noticed his lean forearms and long fingers. "What shall I call you?"

"It's Isa," I stuttered. "I was hoping to a—"

"Isa, were you told about the Castle?" Vincent cut in. "Or have you noticed its state over the last few days?"

"…I don't really go out."

Cid raised his eyebrows a little, but he made no comment. He swung the monitor arm so that Vincent could see it. "Still nothing from Merlin," he said. "Everything we're doing is gonna be useless if he can't send us a tether."

"It just means we leave without a destination and meet Merlin halfway." Vincent walked over to press a few keys, gesturing for me to follow; a model of Radiant Garden came up on the screen.

As Vincent typed, the monitor responded and rearranged its display of the Garden, blowing it apart much like the plane blueprints along the wall. I wasn't sure how I was feeling at that moment, stood in confusion with two strangers talking about something I didn't understand. It was only when Vincent took my shoulder in a gentle move that I realised I had followed all along. Even if I couldn't understand their conversation, I could read their faces.

"Isa, what I'm about to say may frighten you a little, but I want you to stay calm, all right?" Vincent's index finger took me round the virtual image of home. I hadn't realised how beautiful it was, when seen whole like this. "The Garden had a power outage and has been on a green light for a few days, before switching to black for the last twelve hours. One hour ago, Castle officials prompted a resident evacuation, starting with the south. You see how the Garden is a conical shape? It's started tipping backwards. The south side is crumbling as it lifts up; the north side is starting to submerge. We've been anticipating something like this to happen ever since those monsters started showing up at the Castle and King Ansem disappeared."

"Something tells me you were too busy practising job interview answers to pay attention to this," said Cid. "SouthGarden's collapsed."

I fidgeted with one of my bag straps; I had brought samples of my schoolwork to help me convince them to hire me. I had come here for a job; I hadn't asked for anything like this. I waited with struggled breaths, hoping either Cid or Vincent would suddenly announce this was just a silly joke, that I had passed and was now part of their team.

"The beach is on the west side of the Garden." Vincent pointed to it on the monitor. "It's very likely your family have been directed there along with the others in SouthGarden. While the beach is currently stable – much like we are, outside the Castle – the whole of the Garden is going to swing back in a fuller force, like a rocking boat. The resulting tremors will destroy any chance of the ships taking off, so we only have a small timeframe in which to escape."

"Escape?" I stammered. Vincent's hand was tight on my shoulder; if I didn't know any better, it was at my neck, choking me.

"Radiant Garden isn't going to survive," Vincent said gently.

I couldn't feel my body. Some way through Vincent's quiet explanation and Cid's gruff reminders of how time was against us, I had sunk against the desk, back turned to the monitor. For eighteen years, the ground beneath my feet and the sky above my head – I had taken them for granted. They had been a constant. No matter how good or bad my days were, at least I could be certain the world would still be here when I woke up the next morning.

I imagined it crumbling, falling to the earth like a wounded deer, and my mouth ran dry. I began to shout. They were panicked phrases, shuddering words garbled by my chokes and gasps. I had no idea what I was saying and yet, Vincent understood.

"Isa," he said, bringing me back to his eyes. He had one hand on my arm, steadying me. "It's all right; we'll find him, okay? Is Lea your brother? Is he in South Garden?"

"No, he's—he's everything, he's my best friend. We've only just made up, I've only just got him back—!"

"We'll find him." Vincent silenced me with a firm grip on my shoulder. I struggled against his grip, scrabbling for the door. "I won't let you go by yourself. We'll find him together, okay? We'll find Lea. Where is he?"

"He w-works at the Upper Gardens…"

"The Upper Gardens are stable enough, but the monsters originate from there. Watch it." Cid pulled open the desk drawer and from it, he withdrew a battered revolver. I blanched at the sight of it. "They're blanks."

"They'll do." Vincent unzipped his overalls and emerged from it in a smart suit. He transformed before my eyes, abandoning the casual attire for the fearless figure of an adult. Cid spun and then handed over the revolver; Vincent slotted it in his holster before shrugging into his blazer, as though the world ending was something all adults dealt with every day.

"Wait for Merlin to send the tether coordinates; FG will take time moving the ships anyway. I'll see you at the beach. Don't do anything stupid."

"Same to you." Cid nodded. Vincent let go of my shoulder and then, to my surprise, he kissed the corner of Cid's mouth. "Right, Isa; let's go."

  **  
**

**_________________________________**

**SAÏX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

– _forty-four days after birth_ –

______________________________________

 

I keep track of your supposedly absent walk through Radiant Garden without you realising what I'm doing. You're as elusive as my home is, and since you rarely have straight answers for me any more, this is how I rewrite you into my memories. Eighteen hours into our mission, my observations come to this:

You go to the beach six times. For each occasion, you walk a different route; six sets of boot prints, short-lived in the sand, immortalised in my head.

The winding paths behind our school, which you had once taken me by the hand to see an eclipse – you go there twice.

The crumbled cobbles of the promenade, where there used to be an ice cream stand, where a bicycle had swerved to avoid you and hit me instead – three times.

The beach hut, its accompanying concrete steps and the mound of destroyed sun loungers – four times.

South Garden, where my house used to be – just once.

**-x-**

No one relies on an amnesiac for an interpretation of the past. An amnesiac has a carefully constructed history of lies, lies which are crowned as truth over the alternative option of having nothing at all.

No one relies on a compulsive liar, either. He forcibly twists what's real and what's happened and blinds himself with bright delusions and vivid stories, because if he can't lose his memory, you can be certain he'll bury it instead.

I don't know anything about RadiantGarden; you know too much of it. That's why when I set foot in my own home, you're already there.

There are shattered pieces of what used to matter to me and at the heart of the debris, you. You're dying ember, curled and safe in the eye of the self-inflicted storm.

There's a flask by your left foot, and we're back to where we started; you, me, the paper wishes, the stronghold.

There's brick dust on your trembling shoulders. Your back is hunched, your head in a cruel vice by your hands and knees. There are sounds coming from you that I've never heard before; rattled sobs, peppered with hitched gasps of the same phrase.

_I fucked up._

I sit down, amongst broken plates and charred shelves and disembowelled drawers. My fingers to your hair, my lips to the lobe of your ear. "No, you didn't."

Your face crinkles and darkens, like paper on hot coals. You look tired, fed up with yourself, fed up with the bullshit I come out with to keep us tied together.

 _I fucked up._ You curl up and weep, and suddenly, disagreeing seems to be the worst thing I could do for you right now. _I completely fucked up._

Lea doesn't cry.

But maybe, because he knows how the story ends, Axel does.

**-x-**

My past is a spiteful ghost. It surfaces when I don't want it, but disintegrates when I chase after it. Like ice, I can feel its solidarity in the back of my mind, but all it takes is a curious hand, a desperate touch, and it melts away.

The less I think, the more I do. At least, that seems to be the pattern so far. The Superior knew this from the day I was born, and sought to understand me by means of a diary to record my stream of consciousness. Pages and pages of a life I don't remember liking or living, scrambled into someone else's sense; letters and words and phrases, that ring a lonely kind of hollow when I try them out.

The less I think, the more I do. The fewer times I keep going back for Isa, the further I can walk.

At twenty hours, a tall, smouldering portal appears by my side. I wait for someone to emerge, but as the seconds pass and I witness my own hand clouded in purple, I realise I have created it, solving my exhaustion with Radiant Garden for myself.

I'm supposed to call it Hollow Bastion. Zexion insists we call it that, most likely to curb our familiarity with it and to grant the Organisation another controlling weight. After all, if they make our past as irrelevant as the stones we crush under our boots, we have no better place to leave them for.

You're fighting Heartless; Zexion and Xaldin are at the Castle gates with you. They wear strange expressions – much like what you wore when you first arrived – as though they are piecing the kingdom together with old eyes, seeing bricks and mortar instead of dirt and sand. It's not just us, I soon realise, who are home.

I step backwards; no one sees me disappear. One, two, and then the portal seals shut and the corridor twists around me. It disintegrates into night, that spreads to all corners of my vision. The sky is different, haggard and empty; turrets and dormer windows glow as though they can fill the bleak space. I lift up my hood to beat the light rain and test the smooth cobbles under my boots.

Window draperies breathe in the shallow breeze and streetlamps cup a fragment of ancient sun to gleam orange; this place isn't familiar either, but I seem to walk as if it is. The buildings are orderly, with evenly spaced windows and unspoiled house paint. Traverse Town was built from scratch, after all; it hasn't been around long enough to obtain the marks of grand age and maturity. It doesn't have history.

A bit like me, I guess.

**-x-**

This is much is certain, when it comes to Isa:

Traverse Town took good care of him; Radiant Garden didn't.

I'm not certain which half you're in.

**-x-**

The clock hands go round, passing time as easily as pouring water from glass. The face reads twenty-five to one, when the darkness ripples in the corner of my eye, and a portal shuts as quickly as it opened.

Slowly, the Superior goes to stand next to me, back to the wall, arms folded. "Lexaeus alerted me to your presence in Traverse Town," he says, voice low as though I might run from it. "I believe you are still on mission time."

"I gave up." I push my weight to sit on the wall. The terrace backs onto the large white building at the head of the Second District; I can't remember why, but I used to go here often. Something about codes.

With my head a few inches above his, I successfully escape his gaze. "I'm sorry," I say after a moment. "That I can't get _berserk_ to materialise, I mean. Xaldin and Zexion have tried; Lea won't cooperate."

The Superior makes a small sound of acknowledgement in the back of his throat. He seems comfortable in the rain, idly examining the tiny spatters on his coat arms. "Zexion proves to be disappointing," he answers. "I had rather hoped his overconfidence had ebbed, but it appears to hinder him as usual."

"…I don't understand."

"You were not the only one being tested," the Superior replies simply. He turns round to lean on the wall. There are only a handful of people at the square below. "How did you create the dark corridor, Saix?"

"Without thinking."

The corner of his mouth twitches, as if he knew this would be my answer. "Zexion took twenty days to master travel through dark corridors," he remarks. "He still accomplished it in half as much time as you have, but opening a corridor is a Nobody's hardest task. It is quite curious that you can do this and yet, you have no element and your power is tantalisingly sporadic."

"What can I say, I'm complex."

"Perhaps. Or we are just overanalysing you," the Superior concedes.

"You could just turn me into a Dusk," I return flatly. "It'd save us all a lot of trouble."

The Superior offers a faint laugh, a sharp exhale of his nose. "I shouldn't want to give Axel a legitimate reason to hold me in more contempt. You recall I said it was not only you the mission to Hollow Bastion was assessing?"

"Zexion?" I guess.

"Yes. If he cannot finish his task of understanding _berserk_ , I will complete it personally."

I look down to meet his gaze, but at this angle, I can only see his eyelashes. His left hand drums an idle, irregular beat on the wall. "You can do that?" I ask, not bothering to mask my doubt.

"It's not difficult." The Superior gives a tiny shrug. I wonder why everyone I come across seems to enjoy pushing me down, keeping me unknowing and uninformed. "You explained it in that diary of yours."

"I did?" I drop my guard without thinking.

"A Nobody's strength is reflective of his element; his element is reflective of his core qualities. If we reverse this, then understanding Isa gives your element and consequently, explains _berserk_."

I scoff – a habit I learned from you. "Good luck trying to understand. From what I remember, Isa was pretty screwed up."

"And yet, something has stuck, right from the moment you were born: your sense of loyalty."

I frown. I try to connect the dots in my head, try to jump from Isa to loyalty to the destructive persona of _berserk_ , but it makes no sense at all. The Superior gives me no time to deconstruct the information he has offered; in a swift move, he pulls me off the wall, destroying the high gaze that kept me confident.

"I want you to direct that loyalty to me," he murmurs.

"Why?" I challenge. "You've offered nothing in return. You haven't even told me your name. I don't believe a single word that comes out of your mouth."

"I realise you maintain Isa's defensiveness out of habit," he replies politely. "However, forgive me if I don't seem offended. As I recall, you only seem to believe in chronic liars."

"Then go beyond him, if you are that desperate for my loyalty," I return. "So far, besides the compulsory recruitment into the Organisation, all you've given me is a scar on my face." I whip my arm out of his grip and put some space between us.

I glower at him. I start to feel what you do when I look at him, an inexplicable surge of anger and resentment at how he has whittled me down to be as inconsequential as a drop of rain.

"All right," he says eventually. "It's Xemnas."

 


	14. Lea: The Embrace

 

 ________________________________________

 

**LEA, THE BOY WHO'D DISAPPEAR**

\- _five years before death_ -

________________________________________

 

I was battling a hole punch that wouldn't punch holes when my dad showed up at work with the rest of my family in tow.

"Lea, we're going," was all he said. He was in full court gear, but where there should have been court papers in his hand, there was a suitcase instead.

"What's going on?" I asked. A quick sweep of their faces told me they had already been enlightened by my dad. Elise and Lacey were in tears; my mum was busy consoling my grandparents; Elenar had her arms wrapped tight round herself and Lara was being canoodled by her creepy boyfriend Liam.

"The Castle officials have issued an evacuation warning," said my dad.

"Wouldn't the klaxons be going off for that?" I remarked. I folded more paper and fed them to the hole punch. "I dunno, Dad, I think you're overreacting a bit, and you're kinda undoing my efforts to be cool by showing up here."

My dad marched forwards and whacked the hole punch to the floor; the same strike collided with my arm. "Get moving, boy. You should be grateful you even got the evacuation message." He seized me by the back of my shirt and dragged me out the building.

People were still working, still shopping. It was midday and we looked ridiculous, rushing along the street with suitcases and faces of panic. It was classic Dad, using a giant hammer to obliterate even the smallest of kinks in our lives; he was all about making the correction memorable, and not the error. I wanted to complain, but my family seemed so distraught that I figured I'd only make matters worse. It was when we turned a corner that began a route to the beach that all of the pieces fell together to form the ugly, completed puzzle.

We joined a long line of people; they all had tidy suitcases of their own. I took one look and realised what we all had in common. That, coupled with my dad's earlier comment on the evacuation message, sent a wave of disgust to the back of my throat. "Dad," I said. I must have sounded strange, for even Lara detached herself from Liam to look at me. "…How come only rich people are queuing?"

My dad's lips thinned. "The successful are entitled to certain privileges, Lea."

My stomach turned at the faint triumph in his voice. I honestly thought I was going to be sick, just thinking how my family had enough time and audacity to pack their things when they could have been alerting everyone else. I swallowed, almost afraid to ask my next question. "Do the others know they need to evacuate?"

"They'll know soon enough."

"The Castle officials are being realistic," said Lacey, ever my dad's advocate. "In crises, a certain calibre of people are needed for the survival of a town. Besides, we haven't had a massive head start."

"Enough time to pack a suitcase," I pointed out. I glanced at my mum; she was still crying. Behind her, the sloping hill gave way to the stormy beach. I could see thin clouds of smoke towards the south of the Garden, and airships were trawling the sky before lining up on the shore. I kept catching snippets of conversation in the queue, of mothers gossiping and fathers formally agreeing with one another. _Monsters_ , they kept saying, as well as something about the Garden 'tipping'. The longer I waited, the more I heard of their voices, and the more sense the horrific situation made: RadiantGarden had long started its collapse, and SouthGarden had been the first place to go.

I had stepped out of the queue before my brain caught onto what my body was doing.

"Lea, get back in the queue," my dad warned.

"I can't." I was shaking in my work shoes and clutching my bag against my chest like I needed it to breathe. "I'm not leaving without Isa. I have to get him; I can't lose him again."

"He's in SouthGarden! He never stood a chance; now get back here."

"He might have—" Lara started, but my dad shot her down with a shout for her to shut up. She winced and sank back into Liam's arms.

There was the rumble of distant thunder, but it sounded like footfalls more than clashing clouds. I ducked past Lacey as she tried to grab me, and Elise started to cry harder. I glanced back at my mum for the last time. Safe from my dad's glare, she managed a smile and nodded encouragingly. _Go_ , she mouthed.

My dad's voice thundered after me, long after I had ran back up the road. "We won't be here when you're back, Lea! _None_ of us will come back for you!"

**-x-**

The closest experience I could relate to, when the world was ending, was a day when I was six and Elenar had wandered off. I had been holding the bags for my mum while she was paying the stall vendor, and in the middle of idle chatter about the strawberry season, we both turned round and realised Elenar had disappeared. She hadn't gone far – she was only four, after all – but I never forgot how in the blink of an eye, RadiantGarden went from being a home to being a labyrinth.

My mum was in floods of tears, that day we searched the stalls and nearby park for Elenar. She was so upset that when people asked for a description of her daughter, the words simply wouldn't come and I had to do it instead. I remember running and screaming, "Elenar, answer me!" over and over, where ten or so people became an unbearable crowd and their kind voices were about as helpful as the roar of a storm.

It was strange to think how once a personal crisis hit, the very home you loved and grew up in could mutate into the ugly, reeking jaws of a monster. I had grown up on these streets, climbing over that half wall there to get to school; throwing frisbees into that fountain so that I had a reason to go paddling; standing at that corner there where the ice cream vendor used to be; ducking under that exact awning when it rained on your birthday; kissing you under that same darkening sky. Things changed, people changed – for better or worse – but the Garden was always the safety net that made sure no matter what leaps you took, your feet always found the ground afterwards to push in the footprint of a memory.

And now RadiantGarden was working against me, falling apart and threatening to take you with it.

Someone was blowing a whistle up ahead, yelling into a megaphone. I didn't know who he was, but he had clearly been tasked with the struggle to rescue the rest of the Garden, the ones who weren't prosecutors or the apparently important people of town, the ones like you. "I repeat, this is not a drill," he was shouting. "Form an orderly line and head for the shore. Steer clear of the Castle! No big bags or coats; we need to save space. Quickly, come on!"

The afternoon fog had mutated into a thick black cloud, which had dropped from the sky with the weight of its destructive vapour.

As the Garden crumbled before me, I felt a string had been pulled from my ribs and I too, was falling to pieces like the balled fists of debris that rolled under my feet. My eyes stung in the onslaught of smoke, and I tied my keffiyeh over my mouth to block the smell and the sting. I pushed past people, accidentally knocking children out of their parents' grip. "Please, I'm looking for someone." I was shouting – I had to be, for my throat was aching so much – but my voice was so quiet, so powerless against the clamour and the man with the megaphone. "Please, I need to find Isa. H-he's tall and has blue hair. He's important to me, please—"

"You there!" shouted someone, and then again with his megaphone. "I said you there! Boy with red hair!"

I ignored him, pushing through the strong current of panicking people to head back down the avenue. I had to get to SouthGarden; I didn't care how dangerous it was. "Look, son," said a voice by my ear, and there was a painful grip on my forearm. "You're going the wrong way. Those ships are leaving before they lose the ground to take off on, so you haven't got time to waste."

I garbled something, but he understood me.

"Everyone's being told to head to the beach, to the rescue ships. You have a better chance of seeing your friend there."

I almost relented, to the man with the megaphone and to the brutality of the Garden, when a desperate idea took hold of me. I pushed the man, so forcefully he lost his balance and smacked his bearded chin on my elbow.

I snatched the megaphone from his loose grip and swung it to my mouth. "Isa! Isa, answer me!"

"Son, you need to go to the shore—"

I wriggled free from his grasp. "Isa, it's me! Please, come here! Isa!" I managed to shout a few more times before the man wrenched the item away and hollered for the crowd to keep moving towards the beach. I clambered onto a jutting window ledge and gripped a skewed lamppost for balance. From this high point, I could see the smoke's origin – the very centre of the Garden, the giant doors to the Castle. I had half a mind to run back and slam it shut, as if that could rewind the events, as if doing such a simple thing could grant my also simple desire to find you.

"Lea!" a girl called. I turned to see a familiar face.

"Megan!" I bit hard on the inside of my mouth, because she wasn't glaring at me in recognition of our year-long fight. She looked the same – still large and spotty – but there was a certain change to her, something new and admirable that evoked a throbbing spike of shame behind my eyes. She was equipping frightened mothers and babies with small items that'd make their evacuation easier. Going by the activity and orderly pace, I could only assume she had been doing this as soon as the emergency procedures had kicked off.

"Have you seen him?"

I slid off the ledge and she hugged me, staining my front with dust. "I don't know where he is," she said.

I swore under my breath. "You have to come with me," I said. "I have to keep someone safe."

"No, don't worry about me," she replied, clearly reading the fear in my face. "We respect one other's choices at times like this."

Her words ached, partly because I knew our decisions couldn't be more different. She was helping anyone she could; I was struggling to save even one.

She gave me one last hug and resumed her work. I backed away, finally realising this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach wasn't from horror of the falling Garden but disgust, at my own cowardice.

As I pushed through the evacuating crowd, calling for you, I had my first encounter with the shadowy monsters. They crawled along the smoking avenue, enticed by the sound of screaming; their feet kicked debris with them, large bricks and charred wood that I realised, with a twist of my stomach, could be what remained of SouthGarden.

I felt over my front for a weapon, for anything I could use to fight these monsters and get past them to SouthGarden. In the end, I swung my bag as hard as I could to knock one of the smaller ones out the way. My bag burst open and from its outer pocket, a few of my pens clattered across the pavement. My gaze followed them, and then I spotted a pair of small sandals poking out from behind a flowerbox.

"Hey!" I staggered towards them, and I grabbed a thin girl who reached out for me. "Hey, it's okay."

"They ate Yuffie's mum and dad, swallowed them whole." She was tiny; she couldn't be much older than Elise. I looked back at the monsters, saw them in a whole new light. I held the girl's hand and, after praying you had somehow escaped SouthGarden and I was making the right decision, I began to head back the way I came.

"It's okay; don't be scared."

"Yuffie's not scared," the girl said, indignant through her sobs. "Just…this is just sad tears, that's all. She told them, monsters are coming, but Mum and Dad wanted to go back for their treasure."

I lifted Yuffie onto my back, using her slow pace as an excuse to hold her close. "Surely they had their treasure right there with them."

**-x-**

Together, Yuffie and I returned to the centre of town, and we became a pair of rocks that wouldn't join the rushing flow of escape. We stayed on a window ledge, and I kept hollering your name until I thought my voice would go. I often visualised the ships taking off and leaving me behind, but that thought was nowhere near as terrifying as the prospect of losing you. Eventually, just when I thought I should just surrender myself to the creatures, I heard the faint cry of, "Lea!" amidst the shouts and hollers for other lost names.

I jumped down, and a thin, bony hand pushed between two crying girls. You stumbled out, sporting a clear limp. "Isa!" I breathed, laughing from shock and relief. "You're okay; thank god you're okay...!" I hugged you tight and kissed you fiercely. I thought I would never let go, until something wriggled between us. I jumped back to see a ball of fluff poke out from your jacket.

"…Please don't tell me you risked your life to double back for Bunnymoon."

You held her tighter against your chest, apparently expecting me to confiscate her. "I couldn't leave her."

"But now you've hurt your ankle from running that distance! And for what, some stupid rabbit?"

"It's just a sprain," you said, although your face betrayed your words and you were actually flinching. "And I couldn't leave her," you said again. You flushed as though I had just hit you. "It could easily have been me cooped up at home."

"Shh," I murmured, trying to steady both our nerves by cupping your face. "As if I'd ever leave you behind."

I drew back from you when a tall, black-haired man touched your shoulder. He had a gun and was covered in brick dust, which marked out desperate handprints on his navy suit. "Head down towards the beach now," he said. "No detours, no going back for anything else. Queue up at GS 1; that's the one Cid is piloting."

"What about you?" you asked. You seemed to know him.

"I have a few more things to do." He turned to look at me. I wasn't quite ready for the dark red eyes of an adult, which cut through my brave façade and went straight for the frightened coward. He made sure I was holding hands with you and Yuffie, before he gave a tiny nod of approval. "It's okay, Lea; you'll be safe once you get to the shore. Look after them."

**-x-**

The evacuation queues on the beach rather reminded me of a winter morning at school, when all of the pupils were forced out of class to attend a fire drill in the bitter frost. There were long lines of shivering people, huddled together in an attempt to seek comfort and reassurance. All the while, they were pushing forwards to up their chances of getting a spot on an airship.

The suited man from before had now taken up a position at the top of the shore, firing his gun and scaring the monsters each time they came close. He didn't seem afraid of them at all.

We arrived with a fair amount of struggling. Yuffie was tired and distressed, and you had seized up at the concrete steps that led to the beach. I took care of Yuffie first, lifting her down the stairs and into the sand as she sobbed against Bunnymoon.

"Stay right here; I'm just going to pick up Isa, okay?"

You were not openly upset like Yuffie. You had simply turned paler than usual and your body had stiffened, as though in the minute it had taken for me to carry Yuffie down, you had spent a day in a freezer. "Come on." I turned and beckoned for you to get on my back. I waited for your arms to loop round my neck, but you hadn't moved at all. "Isa, look." I straightened up. "We need to get in an airship queue, so I'm going to carry you down. Put your arms round me."

You didn't, and my heart thundered in my head. I couldn't believe your fear of stairs outweighed your instinct to survive. I manoeuvred you myself, hooking my arms round each of your knees and pulling you forwards to rest on me. I ran down the steps and nearly collided with Yuffie. She was still in tears.

You were gasping more than you were breathing, wincing from the pain in your sprained ankle. I wanted to shout at you, to tell you to calm down and focus on getting out safe, but somewhere along our journey to the shore, I had lost you. Your face went scarlet, and when I tried to hold hands with you, you jerked away and hissed. I had never seen such behaviour from you and was about to call you out on it, when I spotted a trio of teenage girls with my classmate Leroy. Despite the gravity of RadiantGarden's imminent destruction, they were tossing fleeting smiles between them, attempting to keep their spirits up through private jokes. I studied the group, the path of the gazes and the grin Leroy had to spare for me when our eyes locked. He mouthed something and pointed to his crotch.

"I don't like people like him." Yuffie's voice was still heavy with sleep. "I don't like people who smile when other people are sad."

The tall man with the gun jogged down the beach; he was starting to look worse for wear. "Isa, you and your friends come this way." He took your arm and directed us across a stretch of disturbed sand to a shorter queue. There was a large airship ahead, with _GS 1_ painted in bright yellow on its body.

I kept glancing behind me. Leroy was calling to us. "Hey, take us too," he was shouting. "Save us a seat on GS 1." He kicked the sand as we slipped out of his vision, but I heard one last thing. "Bastard. Isa, you were so happy to see us last time as well."

There was a horrible taste in my mouth as my adrenalin gave way to the common sense it had buried. You hadn't frozen up and refused contact because of the steps; something worse had been waiting for you. Even Yuffie had acknowledged that group before I had.

"Was it him?" I asked. I managed to put two fingers to the edge of your sleeve. "Was Leroy the one who hurt you?" My heart was hammering in my ears, beating with horrifyingly perfect opportunity. "You only need to nod."

And you did, a sharp and quick jerk of the head that nearly went unnoticed.

The world was dying and at the centre of it, three frightened boys. I realised the solution was beautiful.

We clambered into the airship. It was crowded, and we stumbled over loose seatbelts and weak armrests in order to get to our seats. I strapped Yuffie in first, then you, and for the third seat, I threw in my work bag.

"Lea, what—" you started. I trapped you by pushing my lips to yours and putting Bunnymoon on your lap.

"I think I saw Elise," I said. The lie was easy; it felt smooth against my tongue. "She was supposed to be with my parents but I'm sure I saw her by herself. She's got a red sun hat on; I'm certain it's her."

Like so many others, you mistook my abundance of words for the abundance of truth. "I'm going to go back and check," I said, and you reluctantly let me go. "Don't leave the ship, you understand?"

**-x-**

It felt like an eternity, sprinting back up the beach for Leroy. I wasn't sure what was going through my head at that point; I had no idea what I was going to do once I reached him, either. My mind kept hitching at a freeze frame of you on those steps, the expression you had worn, the way your body had stiffened at the mere sight of those cruel eyes again.

I kept my gaze on Leroy as I approached. The girls sank back a little, and Leroy cracked a smile at first. Then, when I was deemed too close, his eyes narrowed and he made to duck away from my arm. I seized him, letting out a guttural sound. "A word, if you don't mind."

"Hey!" Leroy cried. I half-dragged him up the steps, but no one was foolish enough to sacrifice their place in the queue to save him. I staggered, fell, trod on his hand, and then we burst though the door of the beach hut that overlooked the grim shore. Leroy lost his balance and we crashed into a stack of sun lounges.

"Lea, what the hell?!" Leroy shouted. He shook out of my grip, but that only meant my fists were free to punch him.

"Tell me what you did to him," I shouted back.

"Did to who?"

"Don't play dumb with me," I breathed. "Tell me what you did to Isa."

Leroy got up shakily, still hiding behind a smirk. "Seriously? You want to do this _now_? Shit, Lea, those airships aren't going to wait for us."

He made for the door, but I slammed it shut with a foot and stood in front of it. My body was burning all over, like I was in a furnace and not a ramshackle hut. It had been days since that event, but I had never stopped thinking about it. I wanted revenge, or at least something that would alleviate the poison of a guilty conscience. "Yes, we're doing this now." My voice was even, controlled, a soulless contradiction to the fraught turbulence behind my ribs.

"Lea," he started. "Look, we were just having a bit of fun—"

"Fun?" A long, decisive stride, and then my fists clamped round his collar again. "Do you have any idea what you've done, all for the sake of a sick laugh?"

Leroy's breaths were haggard, but he was determined to fight back. He scratched at my face; I retaliated by hooking a foot round his knee and sending him to the floor. I leapt onto him in a rage. There was a red tint in the circumference of my vision; it could have been my own anger or it might have just been sunset.

"Lea, we were just fooling around!" Leroy gasped. I straddled his chest and brought my fist down; it collided with something hard. Pain shot up my arm, and I welcomed it, landing another blow.

He writhed beneath me. "Bastard," he choked out. "You absolute bastard."

"That's new; gee, no one's called me a bastard before," I said. I was quite sure I laughed afterwards. "Oh, except it's what my dad calls me when he thinks I can't hear him. Let me tell you something, Leroy. You don't fool around with people like Isa; you fool around with people like _me_."

Another punch, another cry.

"You led a group. You rounded on Isa like a pack of wolves and tore him to shreds. You thought it'd be funny to single him out and make fun of the one thing he might actually have been proud of. You used girls to confuse him, bullied him into embarrassment and shame, forced your opinions on him and wrecked him in the process. I hope you got your fun. I hope that fun was bloody worth it, because there's not a _chance_ in hell I'm letting you get on an airship after that."

Leroy's voice was just a garbled cry of strained syllables. Again and again, I hit the bloodied pulp of his face until his eyes rolled back and his nose disappeared, and when my arm grew tired, I shifted my weight to my knees and stretched across for the nearest sun lounger. I dragged Leroy by the scruff of his collar and his hair, and then I bashed the back of his head against the cold metal bend of the lounger's leg. His body flew into a violent spasm; I sat on his chest to stop it.

"You fucked up," I snarled. I smashed in his skull – a sharp ring of hollow metal for each blow – until his face drowned in blood and his hair grew red. "You completely fucked up. He hates you. He pretends he likes you but the truth is he had no choice but to settle, and he fucking hates you for it. He hates you, he hates you—"

"Oh my god." The door had swung open; the sunset cut a rectangle round me. A harsh intake of breath. A shadow slinked forwards, crawling up the body. "Lea, what the hell have you done?"

"Don't," I said, watching that shadow. "Don't yell at me."

My dad was taking slow steps into the hut. He opened his arms, stretched out his hands, but the gesture wasn't for me. He touched Leroy, fingers to his wrist. "How…how could you even do something like this?"

I turned round, seeing nothing of myself in his ashen, horrified face. He was shaking, his gaze sliding to my sticky hands because he couldn't stand my eyes. "How would you know?"

"What?" my dad breathed. His fingers trembled against Leroy's stiff arm and he stared at me. He couldn't work out what he was looking at.

"You don't know me." I stood up, tried to work my fingers against the drying blood. My dad had the sense to take a step backwards, towards the window. "I only existed when I did what you said, behaved the way you wanted. So when you ask me how I can do something like this, why are you surprised? You don't know me; you don't know what I'm capable of."

"And this is your answer?" His gaze fell to the bloodied mess between us. "This…this is sick, Lea. You're sick."

"I know I am. You've been in court, too busy caring about everyone else's lives to notice."

"Oh no, I'm not having you blame me for your perversions," he breathed. "You made yourself a murderer of your own accord."

"You wouldn't notice me." I staggered towards him, arms out. We slipped in the blood leaking from the back of Leroy's head. My soles printed zigzag ribbons onto the creaking wood. "You picked me up last, Dad. You went and collected Lara's fucking boyfriend before you even thought of me! Why?"

We stumbled into the light, boxed in the hut's only window. I scrabbled for his tie, his shirt, clawed at the foreign material. "No, don't come near—" my dad uttered, backing away and away. There was red on his shirt. His foot caught on the bend of a lounger and we toppled, through the open window.

I was sixteen and still growing; my dad was over forty. He hadn't, however, spent his childhood on climbing frames and running tracks. He hadn't bolstered his power with javelins, shot puts and hurdles; he had chosen affidavits and cross-examinations. The only occasion he had ever run anywhere was when he was late for meetings. When the world flipped over in its blood and survival sat on the back of physical strength, legal expertise meant nothing.

Everything above his knees was suspended in the air, held in place by my grip on his shirt. I was stretched across him, chest to chest, one of my calves on the sill. It was the closest we had ever been.

The sea had come in, lapping at the airships' undersides; I could hear seagulls and sirens. Above us, the dusty orange hue of sunset and world end, and below, just concrete.

"Lea," my dad managed against my grip. The concrete spun beneath us. My fingers slid up, past the thick collar to the nape of his neck.

"It's okay, Dad," I gasped, flinching at the ache of his weight pulling at my arms. But he writhed, choked. "Filth," he wheezed. "No filth in my family." He twisted free. "No sons in my family."

My red hands clenched air, and I watched as he dived.

 _You don't understand_ , I thought I said to the blood below. _I was only trying to hug you._

 


	15. Isa / Saix: Moon Cradle

**ISA, THE BOY WHO'D SHATTER**

\- _five years before death_ -

 

I knew you were going to live. 

I had dreamed your future suicide, where you were an adult, taller than you were now, with longer hair, emptier eyes and flames erupting from your fingertips. You still had years left to grow up into the image of my nightmare, and the collapse of Radiant Garden was something you'd inevitably survive. The promise of your suicide did not, however, guarantee that you would come back to live the rest of your life with me. This was left to chance, and it was a risk I wouldn't take. 

I had never been yelled at the way Cid yelled at me, the moment I opened the hatch of Gummi Ship 1. He spluttered a tirade of swearwords from the pilot's chair and stumbled after me. He hollered so loudly, spittle hit my cheek; he seized my shoulder and my knees buckled at the weight of furious kindness I wasn't quite prepared for.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?!" he had roared to begin with, but as his boots thundered against the metal and splashed into the flooded sand, next to my own drenched trainers, his voice broke. "Please, get back inside. I promise you we ain't gonna leave without them."

Cid's rough approach was just a desperate mask, a threatening exoskeleton to hide a horrible truth: that even as an adult, the most basic fears didn't go away. He was terrified for the same reason as me. In all his time in the Gummi Ship, jabbing buttons and checking gauges, Cid Highwind had never fastened his seatbelt; he had never fully submitted to the departure, not while Vincent was away from him.

Cid didn't say anything else after his initial outburst. His face muscles tightened and he blanked the hundreds of people still queuing on the beach to the trail of ships. The doors weren't opening for them, and at the forefront with Gummi Ship 1, we were the only ones who knew this. 

We were fast losing the ground to stand on as the beach kept flooding, but you and Vincent came back within minutes of one another. The four of us dithered in a mix of relief and stress, and while Cid seized Vincent's arm and called him _you fucking idiot,_ I couldn't reach for or even talk to you. My nails scraped the tops of your hands and you pushed past. "I'm all right, I'm all right," you said. "I'm fine, Isa, j-just leave it-"

Cid sealed the hatch shut. His lips thinned as he returned to the cockpit and whacked at the controls. "Everyone in?" he said.

"Everyone's in," Vincent replied quietly. He rifled through the ship's emergency cargo and took out a green towel. "Here."

It was for you, because you were drenched from head to toe and stank of seawater. Your teeth chattered and your hands trembled as you thanked Vincent and hobbled back to your seat. "I slipped." You rubbed at your face with the rough fabric and grinned. "I-it wasn't Elise. You know, from earlier. I thought it was her and I made a mistake. I slipped," you said again, and gestured at your shivering body. "Wh-what a klutz, huh?"

You couldn't stop shaking, and the moment I spoke, you took a shuddering breath and forced a grin. I couldn't believe you were expecting me to buy it.

"I'm so glad you're all right, Lea."

You threw my words back; I didn't know if they were born from anger or if they were actually brimming with affection. " _You're_ all right. You're all right now, I promise."

You slid behind your towel and stared at the blank wall of the Gummi Ship. Yuffie tried to talk to you, but you didn't seem to hear. You switched off, became stock still, bare feet flat against the ribbed floor. I had to wonder how you never channelled the intensities of your emotions as innocent fidgets or twitches and instead, just let them flood your eyes.

I didn't press you for the truth. I didn't know how slipping had made you lose all clothes except for your trousers, how the beige material of the trousers themselves had been ripped away at both knees, how there were scratch marks on your face, how your fingernails were red underneath, how you came back incomplete, a charred husk of the person I loved.

I didn't want to know.

(I didn't deserve to know.)

 

**-x-**

 

Radiant Garden disappeared in silence. There was no sign the Gummi Ship had taken off or was even airborne, save for the roaring engines and the occasional lilt of our bodies in our seats. We had no windows to show where we were going and what we were leaving behind. Most passengers were still trying to overcome the loss of their world, and their quiet sobs hummed a solemn lullaby to the children on board.

You fell asleep quickly. You banished any distress, as though it really was something we could all bottle up and leave outside for the night, if we put our minds to it. You snored against the bare panels of the ship, damp hair stuck to the sides of your face, arms wrapped round Bunnymoon and Yuffie. You left me wide awake in the dark, on my own. My thoughts darted between the fire of your suicide and the hooked sneer of Leroy; I felt my problems were not just chasing me out of Radiant Garden: they were following me. 

Vincent was the only other person awake. He paced up and down the aisle of the Ship, a steady pendulum to ward off nightmares, and when it was just my eyes that reflected the light of his pocket torch, he clicked it off and dragged over a toolbox. I watched as he closed the lid, secured the buckles and transformed the box into a seat. He sat down opposite me with a long, controlled sigh, apparently incapable of relaxing fully. He spoke to me, hoping I'd pick up the lifeline he'd thrown out, but I scrabbled helplessly.

"I-I'm sorry?"

"I asked if you were all right." Vincent sounded utterly drained. In the harsh blue glow of the floor's strip lights, he couldn't hide the sweat and grime caked on his forehead and fringe, he couldn't mask the worry lines or the bloodshot eyes. There was something beyond this, though, beyond the customary dishevelment of a rescuer hard at work. I saw the strings of his smile, the waiflike signs of a soul bleeding out, that didn't exist unless you knew to look for them. 

"I'm okay," I managed. "I've got Lea so I'm okay."

At the mention of your name, Vincent pursed his lips. He wore a peculiar expression - a mix of dislike and pity so strange, I could have imagined it - but when he turned back to me, he was warm again. "Merlin managed to send a definite tether coordinate to us a few hours ago - think of it like a rope reeling us in - and Cid has the other ships on an auto program to follow this one. I thought you'd like to know we have a destination."

I felt hope catch my breath. "What's the new place like?"

"It's difficult to say." Vincent ran his hands over his knees in thought. "Merlin performed a spell that enabled him to get ahead of us to search for a landing, but the transmission only works one way. He hasn't been able to communicate if he found a world or if he resorted to creating something entirely new."

I stopped fidgeting with the end of my seatbelt. In the brief pause, you snorted a little in your sleep as though subconsciously, you were as surprised as I was. "People can do that? Create worlds?"

"Merlin and FG in all likelihood can."

"FG?"

"Cid calls her that because he refuses to say the F word." Vincent smiles at the strange face I pull. "As in Fairy Godmother. FG and Merlin aren't even from our world. What happened to Radiant Garden subsequently happened to other places, including Merlin and FG's homes."

"A-and what did happen to Radiant Garden?"

Vincent sat back and started a little when he remembered he had nothing to lean against. "I don't know," he admitted, "but the universal response so far has been to run as far away from it as possible." He rubbed his knees again. "I understand it's a lot to take in."

But I shook my head, and thankfully, Vincent didn't question my relief. He knew there was a dark, awful secret buried in me that was better left unsaid: I had been more than ready to discard a world I believed had betrayed me, and there was a sickness in me that wondered if I had summoned this. To discover that there were more worlds out there, more chances for me to start again, even at the awful cost of Radiant Garden's destruction, it was the sparkling rope to shore I had been waiting for.

"Who are you?" I asked after a moment. "You reacted too...too well to everything so I was wondering...d-did you know what was going to happen?"

Vincent rested his elbows on his knees and sat forwards a little. "Not exactly," he said, with a grim smile. "We work for someone called Mickey, who in turn is a good friend of the King. Cid and I were Mickey's contingency plan."

"To rescue the residents."

"To use Mickey's Gummi Ship as a prototype and write a build program, that'd construct as many escape ships as possible. I'm just a programmer; Cid's just a pilot," Vincent corrected lightly. 

It was hard for me not to put him on a pedestal. Vincent had saved my life, and he was continuing to repair it as though it was no difficult task at all. He seemed to know exactly where my wounds were and had the precision of a surgeon to heal them. I was being fixed, slowly but surely. I wondered why it was me Vincent had gravitated towards, and I came to the conclusion that perhaps, unintentionally - inexplicably, even - I was mending something in him.

"I don't think you're _just_ a programmer," I said after a moment. 

"No?"

"You rescued everyone on these ships. Everyone owes their life to you."

Vincent's head tilted ever so slightly. "Kindness isn't a bargaining chip. Besides, it was a team effort, and our work is far from done. When we arrive at the new world we will need as much help as possible. I think you'll make a good tech assistant, a junior programmer; what do you think?"

I knew exactly what I thought: the idea was wonderfully brilliant. I was fascinated that Vincent could write on a computer and turn his words into a world travelling ship. I wanted to try, to craft beauty from something so typically overlooked, to take myself by surprise, to belong.

"Do you really think I'd be good at it?"

"Are you daunted by numbers?"

"N-no."

"Good eye for detail? Good memory?"

I knew the entire night sky by heart once."Yes, I think so." 

"And you're patient," concluded Vincent. "If you like, do you want to come over to the cockpit? We can't see much out of it but the navigation display might interest you and give you an idea of code input." When Vincent caught me glancing at you, he added, "Don't worry, they'll be okay. In fact, Yuffie could probably do with the extra space."

I got up, and only then did I fully appreciate how tall and sturdy Vincent was. I couldn't put an age to him just yet, but he may have been close to your father, as someone far wiser and smarter than us both. He loosened Yuffie's seatbelt and gently tugged her from your arms, and as I got up from my seat, Vincent laid her head down carefully. I watched, strangely comforted, as Vincent swept Yuffie's hair out of her eyes. He straightened up and cleared his throat. Then, without warning, he froze.

"...What?"

"Oh." The single syllable broke his impassive mask, and when I saw the sadness seep through, I thought I was intruding, that I was seeing the method behind the magic. "Oh no," he breathed. He stood up, and for the first time, he looked at me with pity. However, his hand didn't reach for me. He took a single step forward to your seat and the breach of personal space woke you up. You gave a startled grunt and shrank as far as your seat would allow, as if Vincent's gentle hands were about to throttle you.

"No, don't! Get away from me-" you half shouted. You whacked his arms, but Vincent wasn't reaching for you.

I suppose I had never seen what death looked like. My occasions with death had been kind, only existing as solemn readings and flowery graves, as elegant covers to the corpse underneath. Consequently, I wasn't quite prepared for the surge of sickening realisations, that this would be how my aunt, uncle and cousin looked right now, buried in the rubble of South Garden. This was how everyone still stranded at Radiant Garden would end up, cold and stiff, with blood running out their nose and eyes permanently locked in surprise, as though even after passing, their shock lived on.

"Oh my God...Wh-when? I was just-" You let out a strangled cry and turned your hands. They were shaking, and all the colour drained from your face as you stared at your palms, at the memories etched in them; and then to Vincent, to the navy cradle of his arms, where in them lay the lifeless body of Bunnymoon.

 

 

 

**SAIX, THE LUNA DIVINER**

-  _forty-five days after birth_  -

 

The Organisation does not forget my escape to Traverse Town. Even if it was a thoughtless action, a sudden break away from the mould of Isa, the fact remains I disobeyed orders and Xemnas himself had to retrieve me. 

The moment I return, I have a mission brief handed to me, red letters telling me to walk circles down to the lower levels and sweep the floors. It's a careless, indifferent task; I am so insignificant a person, sparing imagination for even a punishment is too great a waste of energy.

I don't know what happens to Zexion. His inability to explain berserk was classed as a great failure, and I can only surmise it warranted an equally great admonishment. All I know is that something stopped his smirking.

I quite like the lower levels of the Castle. Its corridors are drawn with chains and endless ribbons, woven with pulsing light, a synthetic heartbeat, of being alive but not really so. No one ventures down here, not when there are impressive, ornate halls above, upholding the freckled night. There are only Dusks, and they watch me as curiously as I watch them; we sweep the pristine floors and they chatter, like crinkling paper. I study their zipped mouths and silent feet, and I wonder if that will one day be me - an imitation, a wayward guess at existence.

"They're the weaker forms. They didn't have inner strength to make it across as completely as we did." Xigbar materialises next to me. He pretends to be initiating a spontaneous check, when I know he is trying a plethora of combinations to unlock information. "When they lost to the darkness, they lost both their heart and will. So while you slipped the net and somehow joined the Nobodies, the truth is you're not much above these guys at all. Look at 'em, pathetic things."

Xigbar lifts a hand and there's a whistle, a streak of bright purple cutting through the air. One of the Dusks shrieks and gibbers, topples over with a dart in its back. Xigbar scoffs, his visible eye analysing my reaction. I keep a straight face, tie up Isa and lock his fierce panic behind my ribs. 

"Vapid creatures." Xigbar itches beneath his ponytail and creases up into a light laugh as the Dusk swings up, splits its head into a gormless grin and carries on sweeping, left to right. He shoots it again. "See?" He stops smiling, face muscles taut. There are blemishes on his face I haven't noticed until now, lines and wrinkles that speak of anger. "So how did you do it? How did you, with no weapon, no element, just the capabilities of a Dusk, create a dark corridor to a place you've never set foot in?"

"I don't know; I just did." We keep our gazes on the injured Dusk. While I will it to regain its strength, Xigbar fires his gun every time it does. "Wouldn't you normally disguise your intrigue?"

"Intrigue! As if." Xigbar rolls his shoulders into a shrug. "I just got this bit of paper upstairs that says it's my mission to ask you some follow up questions. Gotta do my tasks 'cause I don't want to be sweeping floors any time soon, you know?" He slots his gun away. With a crooked smile, he feigns writing on a clipboard. "What thoughts crossed your mind when you created the portal?"

"I'm not answering any of your questions."

Xigbar sighs. "You really have no idea how you did it. How you're doing anything, full stop. You're blundering around on automatic and happen to hit all the bells as you pass. That's all you are - a fluke."

Finally, I trouble myself to meet his gaze. "That's all you hope I am, you mean." I step back, put space between us. Xigbar's lips twist into an ugly sneer. "There's a reason why you shoot the Dusk and not me. It's the same reason why you've only ever stood on the sidelines: I'm strong. As the Organisation's number Two, you won't challenge me because there's a chance I'll beat you. It might only be a chance, but it's a risk you won't take."

Xigbar's chin juts out as he responds with a tight lipped smirk. "Careful, kid," he murmurs. "I've only refrained because the Superior gave me explicit orders."  

He thinks for a moment and the arrow gun comes back. The Dusks chatter behind me, but the gun is lifted to my face, to rest on the bridge of my nose. I stare up the barrel to the cold yellow eye. "As tempting as it is," Xigbar says, around a rehearsed smile, "I can't fight you yet. But the day the Superior lifts that ban will be when he orders your removal. You might not be feeling so cocky then." 

He studies the gun between us as though he's only just spotted it. I blink, and Xigbar walks away. I listen to the retreating footfalls, of my own steady breaths. When he is out of earshot, I drop the broom and sit on my haunches. "Come on. It's all right."

The injured Dusk chitters in protest, but the circle it traces round me is near enough. With a little grunt, I pull out a dart. It dissipates, crumbling in the heat of my palm. The Dusk watches and shudders, and its companions edge closer, like children inspecting a bug. 

"Stand still; don't...gyrate or whatever it is you're doing." I repeat the process, this strange task of dissolving only the reminders of pain. When the remnants of Xigbar have gone, I press my lips together and I know quashing Number Two himself will not be so easy. Still, I know how to start, and that's to fill in the blanks of my memory.

My left hand touches the cold wall; the portal swirls into existence again. The Dusks grin.

 

**-x-**

 

I need to find out who I was. This, at least to me, will explain who I am now without the Organisation's involvement, without your spin on the story, without my body breaking down.

The portal takes me to Traverse Town, inadvertently to the same spot as before, as if there is a thread at these concrete slabs, pulling me back. The terrace juts from the large white building behind me. A giant clock face bores down on the empty plaza. Puddles the depth of a fingernail fill the indents of floor tiles worn with use. Somewhere beyond the red roofs, a bell tolls. 

I cross the plaza, thinking of weather vanes and green lamps. I wonder where Isa's taking me, when out the corner of my eye, I spot the damp steps and halfway up them, you.

I haven't seen you since Radiant Garden, not since you had buckled beneath the eaves of my old house and wept for Lea's mistakes. I'm not sure you've even recovered from it. There's a distinct detachment to the way you sit and stare, the back of your head resting on the top step, seeing beyond the black sky.

I sit down by your bent knees. Your uniform is wet from hours under the lightest of showers. "How did you get here?"

You shift your head a little, a vague acknowledgement. "Called in a favour with Lexaeus. You?"

"I created a portal. Again." I mirror your position, resting against the steps and tipping back to greet the rain. "It always takes me to the same place."

It takes a few seconds for you form even the most base of replies. "And where's that?"

"The terrace, up there by the white building." I risk a quick look, but you remain deadpan. I know your pulse will betray you, and your hand is right there next to mine, and I don't dare to reach out.

"There's nothing special about it," you say. (Special doesn't necessarily mean significant, though, says a voice in the back of my mind.)

"I like this world." I watch the neon sign above me, flashing between yellow and orange. "It has a certain vibe. Like it's home."

Your body language is not of someone who is at home, however, and I start to think that this statement has only ever applied to Isa. "I remember Bunnymoon died, when we were on the Ship," I mutter into the rain.

You take a deep, shuddering breath and with a grunt, you sit up. "Yeah, she did. Poor thing was scared to death." You give a sad smile. "Man, I loved that rabbit."

"So did I." 

"You remember how she always did those little binkies? And how you'd take her out the hutch every time you were over?"

"I was her favourite," I tease quietly. "She never bit me."

"Ugh, she always bit me." You look over your shoulder to catch my laugh. "She never sat still for me either. I used to waste hours trying to catch her."

"Because she knew what you were up to. You didn't have a good handle on animals."

"Didn't have a handle on anything, to be honest." You lie back down on the steps, but this time, you reach for my hand. Together, we stare into the blackness of the sky. "She used to be called Hazel, remember?"

I think back to that first time I went round your house, when you had lifted the rabbit into my arms renamed her for the shadow of the moon. "She never looked like a Hazel."

The grip on my hand tightens. "But that's who she was. The original name matters, don't you think?" 

The neon lights above us flash between orange and green, like the indecisive wave of my mind. "I think the name we live up to is the one that matters."

You tilt your head so that our temples touch. There's the smell of ashes, and I wonder if your facade is finally beginning to burn. "Do you think it's too late to start again?"

"Yeah."

"I wish I could. You know, wipe the slate clean and start fresh, like jumping to another world and resetting the sky."

I bite down on the words at the back of my throat - because you can rearrange the sky and her stars and the darkness will still be the same - and I will myself to rediscover my tolerance and patience. You sit up and slide, so your upper body presses against mine. Your kisses are silencing; they're repeated pleas for my ignorance to carry on.

"Sometime - I don't know how soon - you're going to remember everything." You draw back and wipe the rain from our faces. "You understand, right, if I ask you to hold back on those memories for as long as possible? Because this...coming back to Traverse Town, it's just..."

It'll open the floodgates.

You disregard my frustration with amnesia, the perilous situation it puts me in with the Organisation; instead, self-preservation is all that matters to you. You are desperate for the idyllic life of Isa and Lea to stay untarnished by the truth, and I know I should resent you, but I can only wish for the same.

In that moment, I realise why the amnesia exists in the first place. The Organisation has always argued that it's a defensive mechanism, brought in by Isa to protect me from the trauma of the past. However, if my mission in Radiant Garden was anything to go by, there is no trauma at all, just history. And so Isa's attempts to erase my memory, building me from berserk and loyalty alone, he isn't doing it to protect me.

I think he's protecting you.

"I want you to promise me something." You shield me from the rain, give me no room to escape. "Promise me you'll never come back to Traverse Town. Don't use your subconscious portals; don't come back here."

I prepare my own stakes, responding to the deep whispers of this world. "I will, if you answer just one question."

You pull back a fraction. Your hair's starting to sag beneath the weight of the rain, and it sticks to the sides of your face. I remember seawater, and the cold, empty stare you had on that Ship out of Radiant Garden. "Go on."

"You have to answer truthfully, and in turn I'll make my promise genuine." 

"Go on," you say again.

I trace the marks under your eyes, these purple blemishes exclusive to Axel. "Did you ever cry? For Bunnymoon, or anyone we ever lost that day?"

I wait for your body to betray you, to stiffen with guilt and contort with twisted pride. But you reply as though you had long expected that question. "I never cried." You grab my wrist. "Now promise. Please."


End file.
